Kidney Class

K and I went to Kidney transplant class on Tuesday afternoon, and dialysis class on Wednesday morning. Our neighbors came for moral support. We learned about Fistulas, and how they create one intentionally in the forearm, to assist with the hemodialysis process. We learned a little about peritoneal dialysis. We learned that a transplant is far more preferable than either kind of dialysis. We even learned that there are classes for learning (or getting up the nerve) to ask friends and family about the possibility of donating a kidney for a transplant. We learned that doing nothing would have fatal consequences. Here's a link to the NIH writeup on Chronic Kidney Disease. Having gone to the classes, she's now on track to proceed to the next steps in the process. As always, K was thinking ahead, and kept us entertained with a trip to the Museum of Nature and Science after the Tuesday class.

The usual Thursday afternoon Lee Gulch / Chatfield / Platte bike ride was well supported by nice weather. Here's a pic from one of the few moments when everyone was behind me... coming down the hill off Chatfield Dam. As usual, we had a great dinner afterwards at Platte River Bar and Grille.

I rode along as safety pilot with Mike on Friday afternoon, flying out of Front Range airport. It was just a bit bumpy for me, but I survived long enough for him to make it through the six instrument approaches he needed for his IFR currency.

Saturday started out with another ride to Bear Creek Dam with the guys from work. After that, K and I ran a few errands, picked up some meds at Kaiser, then took up temporary residence at Costco, long enough to load up on a pile of groceries, and pick out some new T-Mobile phones. I settled on a Blackberry Pearl and we got K a nice Nokia 6133 flip phone. Oh, and while we were at it, I picked out a new Dell computer to replace my desktop that's never worked quite right, after being slammed around by United Parcel Service, and even after replacing several major components. I think I sprained my wrist, trying to wrestle the big box into the back seat of K's car. The monitor on this thing is huge. If a screen can be too big, I think this might be the one.

K had the idea we should go to the Denver Zoo on Sunday. It was a beautiful day for it. As always, we were taken with the Lions and Tigers and Leopards. The giraffes were pretty cool, too. I think we had almost as much fun watching the kids going ga-ga over all the stuffed animals in the gift shop.