These boots are made for walking

Except I'm in ActiTread socks... :-P Today was pretty good! Holly brought me some bagels on her way in to work today. YUM. Then the dialysis guy showed up at 0730! Woo Hoo! It takes 3.5 hours, so that meant that I might be done by the time my cousin, her husband, and their cute 6 yr old son planned on getting here. Dialysis is kind of cool. The filter they use gets nice and warm from my blood. There are thousands of filament type tubes that the blood goes through and all of those minuscule tubes are surrounded by water. They pulled off another 3 liters today. I am looking normal again! My legs aren't swollen hardly at all anymore. The doctors know I am eating and drinking quite a bit (dialysis seriously gives you dry mouth), but they would rather adjust my meds around my habits than adjust my habits around the meds, which I think is totally awesome. My kidneys are trying to come back, just little by little. I can't tell you how awesome it is to be able to drink as much water as I want! They haven't limited me at all! I am sort of limiting myself so that I am not stuck on dialysis forever, but man, my kidneys and bladder need some hydration, if you pick up what I'm putting down... After dialysis, my cousin, her hubby, and their son came to say Hi! It was so awesome to see them. They brought a huge basket filled with Jelly Bellies, Tea, and 2 really cool mugs. Their son was happy wearing the gloves but wasn't too happy with the mask, but he put up with it for an hour while we all (parents, me, Jeff) got caught up. I was impressed. He fist bumped me and then sat on the couch far away from me. Made me sad cuz I wanted to give him a big hug, but I wasn't crazy enough to hug a kid when I have no immune system. Yes, we did get pre-approval for a kid coming into my room. They live in Phoenix, so we should be able to get out there and see them more frequently. I am so happy we are back in San Diego. After they left, Dr. G came in to pull 2 of my 4 chest tubes. Funny story. Dr. G is pulling my pacemaker lead wires a few days ago and asks where in San Diego we live. I say Kensington. He gives me a funny look and he asks what street I live on. I give him a funny look and tell him. We live on the same street!!!! How crazy is that?? He is a really great doctor. I like him a lot. He pulled over 12 inches of tubing out of each side of my chest. Oh? You're wondering where it all goes in someone my size? It gets tunneled up and around in my chest cavity. That's why the docs say it hurts so much more to be small and skinny (or just skinny)... there's no room for all of the required stuff inside of you! I've been a bit sore all day from the tubes being removed, but I can breathe a little bit better. I'm sure the soreness will be gone by tomorrow and I'll be walking even faster around the loop! I had an awesome nap this afternoon and then Jeff brought me homemade spaghetti. YUM. I had already eaten part of my hospital dinner b/c I forgot Jeff was bringing me dinner. Well, when Jeff got here I scarfed down almost all of the pasta. It was delicious. He used that Rao's Arribiatta sauce with sage breakfast sausage. Oh, yummy in my tummy I didn't even miss the cheese! Okay, I missed the cheese. I am not supposed to have dairy due to the phosphorous levels in dairy and how it affects the kidneys. Oye. Try finding anything in a restaurant or fast food place that doesn't have some kind of dairy! I know you can hold the cheese, but when it's one of the main ingredients it doesn't work too well! But Jeff and I are making it work and trying really hard to limit the dairy (I can't seem to eliminate it no matter how hard I try- I need butter on my roll, man). There is talk of pulling my other tubes this weekend. I will be a totally free woman then! These plastic "tanks" are pretty heavy and I need someone to carry them into the bathroom and around the halls when I go walking. So I am kind of stuck in a chair or the bed unless I have people to help me. I will probably go home late next week. So I am gonna be climbing the walls around here! I'll be walking so much I might break into a sweat... oh goodness, just imagine that! So I've noticed some numb parts of my body- due to the cut nerves and stuff. My chest is completely numb. I'm sure some feeling will return, but it's weird to touch it and have no feeling. Where they cut into my leg for the ECMO and some of the area around it is also numb. I am itching like crazy from the healing process and my bruising is slowly looking better. My face looks a million times better and the tape they used to hold my eyelids closed is pretty much gone. My eyes were red and crusty for a long time. But I am looking pretty normal now! I just have 2 huge antennae coming out of my neck for the dialysis. If I can lose those I'll just be down to a nice, simple IV in my arm. So Jeff always tucks me in before he goes. That involves putting on my leg clampers, getting my pillow situated under my coccyx ulcer, making sure the bubblers are set, making sure my pillow is at the right height... it's quite the endeavor. So the nurses just came in and one was dragging a scale at 1215 in the morning! I was kind of sad to have to undo Jeff's tucking in. He does a pretty good job and now I can't seem to get comfy on my butt pillow. Sigh... stupid ulcer and stupid scale. But their arrival did remind me that I have been nodding off while writing this (there I go, sleeping again!) and I need to get some shut eye. I'll hopefully update again tomorrow! Oops, I mean today! I have been trying to post some pictures but the interface b/n my iPhone Blogger and the iPad Blogger are awful. The pictures don't come through. I'm pretty sure the iPad is the reason I can't get normal spacing in this blog either. Again, I am so sorry for the huge run-on paragraph.