Ethan’s Journey

I left for the airport around 6am. Jason was so nice to drop me off. He is such a great kid. I am proud of him. It took about an hour and 20 minutes to get through security. Ugh! Luckily I planned well and it was no problem.  I had some nice man help me by lifting my bag into the over head compartment. He also lifted it down for me. He was my angel today. His wife was super nice too. The flight was flawless and I made it to the hotel with plenty of time to do some interviews. I was able to check in my room early! YES! I scheduled an Uber to the place where my event took place. It was on a college campus. I met one of the Practice Managers that I hire for there.  The event I was participating in was “speed interviewing”. Basically we met with many vet tech students for a short amount of time .We had such a successful event. I was pleased with the turn out from the students. I love seeing theout growing their careers, talking to people and excited about it. Meanwhile at the Diiu...

Today was another beautiful day. Jason and I had our coffee watching the devastation happening just an hour west of us. It is absolutely horrific what damage has been done. Not only physical damage, I can only imagine what long lasting traumatic effects have been left on people. Any time it rains or there is a chance of a storm, I can’t imagine how scared they may feel. We went and met up with one of my sorority sisters for brunch. I had not seen her in at least 22 ish years. Funny thing was, we picked up like no time had passed. After a few hours at brunch, Jason and I headed over to check out a park. It is called Freedom Park. It was a cute little park. As we were walking up, I saw a green lizard darting across the pathway. I tried to catch it so that we could be friends. It ended up jumping on me. Awe…it wanted to be my friend too. It was a highlight. Not as cool as being bit by a camel, but close. We watched the ducks for a bit. They were cute. We saw a gimpy duck. She was a lady. ...

 Despite the fact I am in North Carolina, thankfully we are far enough east that we are out of the hurricane yuck! Today was warm and sunny. The sky was bright blue and it was cheerful out. Jason and I went out on his porch to have coffee. We were laughing and chatting. We got ourselves ready to go to breakfast. He took me to a cute  local farm restaurant known for their yummy chicken. When we arrived there with our hungry bellies, it was closed. They didn’t open for another hour.  Went to a mall that was close by and walked around there. Then Jason suggested this antique place at an old Mill close to the train tracks. YES! When we walked in, it smelled like an old building. The floors were wood. I could picture them a a rich tone back in the day. Since they were walked all over everyday, they had lost their shine. The were worn down by many feet scuffing on them over the years. There were cool antiques. There were also things that were “vintage” but couldn’t possibly be ...

 Jason worked today, as did I. He came home to visit at lunch. We chatted for a bit and back to work he went. The weather was questionable this morning. The trees were rocking back and forth pretty decently. The rain was assaulting the windows. The tornado warning went until noonish. After lunch, the weather cleared up. The rain stopped. The sun came out. It was beautiful out. I went out on Jason’s covered balcony and worked in the fresh air. It was delightful. After work, we went to dinner. We sat outside at a brewery called BJ’s brewery. I wanted to get a shirt but they didn’t sell them. I was not mature enough not to snicker. Jason drove me around and showed me where he works, the NASCAR complex, where all the racing companies are etc!  He showed me their version of the fanciest grocery store. To be fair, this store had flower boxes on their cart returns. We stopped at their version of Aldi which is called Lidl. We picked up some ice cream treats there.  We came back t...

Ethan had another monarch hatch out. He released it and we watched it flutter away into a tree and land on a leaf.  We have 2 more left that need to hatch out and then our monarch days will be done until next year.  It has been fun!   This hurricane has really caused a lot of  extra   planning. I was supposed to fly out tomorrow morning to get to Charlotte to see my nephew, Jason.   As I was looking at the weather, it looked like there would be rain today, with 10 mile an hour winds OR 12 hours later…..tomorrow, rain with lightening with 25 mile an hour winds. I made a call to Jason. I was able to quick change my flight to 12 hours sooner. I got my things together, finished up work and headed to the airport. The airport was a ghost town. There was hardly anyone there. I think they had two gates operating out of the 24 there. We were supposed to leave the airport at 8:38 pm, but the crew boogied and we were in the air by 8:25 pm. They had shortened our fligh...

I found a dog food puzzle at Goodwill. It was brand new, still in the box. You put food in it and the dogs have to move flaps and slide knobs in just the right combination to get the treat. Each dog had their own turn with the puzzle. Jiminy was the quickest to figure it out. Ferguson was a close second. Penny had a bit of a learning curve. She finally figured it out, mostly. Moe….well bless his heart, he did not understand what the puzzle was. He started just gnawing on the side of it, like a doofus. So I gave him a scavenger hunt with some of his food, throwing it in the yard and having him sniff it out. We all have things we excel at and things we don’t. I went to physical therapy today to learn all the exercises I need to do for the best case scenario to avoid another back surgery. My physical therapist was personable and remembered Ethan. She recognized the last name. He had not been there in 3 years. She remembered how thin he was and his story. After collecting a history, she th...

Today we met with the psychologist again. It has been agreed that Ethan fits the criteria for a selective norepinephrine uptake inhibitor. This is likely due to the traumatic brain injury sustained by the stroke causing Ethan’s brain to have difficulty focusing on tasks.  The more she was talking, the more things fell into place regarding things Ethan has been doing that have been different than pre-transplant. Certain behaviors, losing things, lack of organization, and of course difficulty concentrating. Because of Ethan’s complex medical issues and his renal function declining, a meeting has to be had regarding the benefits and risks of Ethan being treated for this imbalance. We will meet again in a couple weeks. I did share my frustration with our nephrologist’s seemingly lack of interest in hearing Ethan and his concerns, as well as my own. I will not apologize for asking questions in a polite, collaborative way. Even if the doctor is dismissive and acts like our questions are ...