Monday, August 06, 2007

Sorry for the lack of a post...

Last week was a whirlwind as I finished up at the old job. Loose ends to tie up, a project I had to turn over (still looking for someone to take over the ICG monitor, you know you want to!). Thursday night my peeps and I went for drinks and snacks. I imbibed way too much and wound up getting a ride home on my friend's motorcycle, much to the consternation of my husband. He was alright once he realized who it was that drove me home. How I managed to stay on is another story. Now he's using the incident to leverage me into letting him get a bike, as if I "let" him do, or not do, anything. And no, PJ, he not interested in seeing the pictures of your smashed up knee, K thnx.

Late Friday night, eldest daughter informed us that she wanted to come home for the weekend. She's been working as a camp counselor up near the Kittatiny Ridge and needed a ride home. Bonus, she's had the last Harry Potter book up there with her, so I allowed her to come home AS LONG AS SHE HAD THE BOOK. No, seriously, I was glad to see her. So guess what I've been doing this weekend? I had no idea Dumbledore was gay! Ooops, hope I didn't spoil it for anyone.

I completely missed National Minority Organ Donor Awareness Day, August 1st. I was going to write a post and, well, you know how it is when you're only allowed out drinking one night a year. Anyway, today the waiting list has over 96,000 people on it. Over half, I believe 52%, are minorities. Unless you live in a hole in the ground, you know that high blood pressure and diabetes are epidemic in minority communities. According to the US Renal Data System, African Americans are 289% more likely to need dialysis or a kidney transplant than a white person. In 2006, minority donation rates increased slightly, with African Americans making up 15.5% of deceased donors and latinos were 13.7%.

OrganDonor.gov has a nice site that not only tells you how to sign up to be an organ donor, but also how to avoid needing an organ. I recently read in the Institute of Medicine's 2006 report on Organ Donation that 1 in 5 people, sometime in their life, will either need or know someone who will need an organ transplant. Every day I hear some news report about the growing obesity epidemic. As hard as it is to get the waiting list to come down, we should remember that there are things we can do to keep some people from needing a transplant. I may not have a preventative for biliary atresia, but I can keep my weight and blood pressure down and educate my patients on why it's important for them to do the same. Every little bit helps, right?

Anyway, I've got 2 more chapters of Harry Potter to finish.....

7 comments:

PJ Geraghty said...

Tell the hubby I have the perfect motorcycle for him and I'll sell it cheap. It's in excellent shape, with only a small tib-fib-shaped scratch on the right side :-)

And if he's like me, pix of my & the knee won't dissuade him. He'll just say (and not entirely incorrectly) "He wasn't careful. I'll be careful."

You can always tell a husband, but you can't tell him much.

Hectic Life said...

Just finished Harry Potter, loved the ending. Good to see a new post.

Robin said...

Well, it's Tuesday, so you must have finished HP by now! Did you like it? I really enjoyed it myself.

p.s. The Dumbledore gay thing didn't faze me, but I didn't realize that "Hermione" was short for "hermaphrodite"...

Jessa said...

where would one find information about becoming a living donor?

Shig said...

Mighty Hermaphroditey? Hmmm, I'm not sure if it'll go over well in the Red States.

Lou, I'll have to get more info on the becoming a living donor. I'd think that calling your local kidney transplant program would be a start.

Kim said...

I didn't mind Dumbledore being gay, it was finding out that Harry had four illegitimate children that threw ME for a loop...

PS - does obesity of a donor decrease their ability to donate? Or recieve for that matter?

raf said...

Hi. You don't know me, but I found your blog and this post by Googling "Dumbledore was gay".

You will shortly find out that you were accidentally correct about this.