Money. It shouldn’t be a deciding factor in becoming a living donor. But it does factor into actually following through with being a living donor. I’ll share with you how a donor assistance program and other donations are helping us with over $8,000 of non-medical costs. What does Insurance Cover? My cousin’s insurance (not mine) covers… [Read More]
Generosity is the key to success.
In order to really thrive, I believe we all have to give generously. These posts are about giving my best, giving back, and even a few old school giveaways now and then.
Living Liver Donor Story: When The Transplant is Postponed
It’s 10:47 PM and I’ve been awake for 20 hours. I’m sitting here, in a hotel room hallway, a little numb and crestfallen. The living liver transplant that was scheduled for tomorrow morning has been postponed…or cancelled until further notice. I feel the need to get this info out there before the morning, before I… [Read More]
Living Liver Donor Story: Surgical Consult
After being approved to be a living liver donor, the next steps were to: Choose a transplant date. Schedule the surgical consults. Bank a unit of my blood. NAT testing (blood tests). Start taking two medications; a bile thinner and stool softener. I’ll cover those first four things in this post. Fundraiser T-Shirts now available!… [Read More]
Living Liver Donor Story: Waiting for Approval
At this point in the story, I’ve finished the potential liver donor tests. Now we’re waiting for approval. There have been many different waiting periods in this journey. I want to share why this waiting period was so important for me. Waiting feels horrible. First, let’s acknowledge that waiting sucks. You have no control and can’t do… [Read More]
Living Liver Donor Story: Evaluation Process
In this post I talk about my donor mentor a bit and share what my donor evaluation process was like at UCSF – in other words, all the tests that were done back in March. But first, a little review of my living liver donor story so far. Feb 2nd I found out my cousin… [Read More]
Living Liver Donor Story: Pre-Screening
If this is the first you’re reading of my living liver donor story, you can start from the beginning. After learning my cousin needed a living liver donor my husband and I decided to take the first step. This meant research and pre-screening, which I’m sharing about in this post. Sharing a Liver 101 I started… [Read More]
Living Liver Donor Story: Responding to the need.
Subscribe to follow my living liver donor story. Living Liver Donor Story Folks, this is hard to write. Not because I don’t want to share, but because I don’t know how to share and what to share. I typically write in a casual, light-hearted, sometimes sarcastic tone, but to do that with this topic seems risky…. [Read More]
My 33rd Birthday Request
I’m turning 33 this month. Yay! But… that’s the bait. Here is the switch. As there is no sense in being fancy-worded about this, I’ll just blurt it out. My cousin will die if he doesn’t get a new liver (diagnosis: Primary Sclerosing Cholangitis) so I’m going to give him part of mine. I’ll explain more… [Read More]
C.E.R.T Training – Disaster Preparedness
Disaster preparedness? What, are we doomsday preppers now? No, we don’t have a bunker or a stockpile of dehydrated food (or do we?). However, it doesn’t take a disaster of biblical proportions to find yourself if need of basic survival skills. Lower your eyebrows. My husband and I like to acquire knowledge, skills and resources to take care of ourselves and help… [Read More]
Whistle GPS Pet Tracker
I’m currently writing about the huge variety of fitness trackers and sports watches out there. For humans. What about our four-legged running buddies? I’ll admit I’ve tried putting my GPS watch on Moxie before to get her stats. You can imagine how that went. Good news – there is a better way. It’s called Whistle! I’m… [Read More]