Out for a walk

Trevor came to visit today he was released Thursday. He is doing and looking great. Ben has of course been here the whole time supporting. The surgery was really tough, 8 hours instead of 3! I lost a lot of blood and had to have blood transfusion during surgery and for days after. We had some other surgery complications with my arteries, but everything has worked out great. My creatine, measure of toxins in the blood, is 1.7 today. This is really amazing considering we also had antibody cross match numbers. I still have to under go a treatment this week and kidney and bone marrow biopsies for the next few weeks at least. Everything looks good so far. Trevor is on his back to Minnapolis on Sunday and I already had my first tbone moment so we will see what happens with his kidney! Thanks for all of your support. I should be out of the hospital by Tuesday and back to the Gift of Life Transplant House. www.gift-of-life.org 705 Second Street SW Room 24.

Transplant Update

Trevor came up to visit today, I just returned from the Intensive Care Unit, we had some complications and I had stay there longer than expected. The kidney is doing well though. Trevor is feeling pretty good. I guess I'll update later in the week. For now I am just resting, getting some blood ect...Thanks for all the support.

Success!

Just a very quick update. The transplant was a success. Dea & Trev are both recovering well. Dea is still in the icu, but will be released to her room later today. I will do a more indepth post then.

- ben

It's a GO!

as of yesterday, Dea and Trevor's cross match #s were still in the 330s (need to be under 300 for a transplant) but after more treatment for Dea and another blood test this morning....297! Trevor started his surgery at 12:40 and Dea at 1:30. The Great Midwestern Kidney Swap is underway! thanks to everyone for the positive thoughts.

i'll keep posting here as time allows.

ben

Trevor's here!

Trevor arrived at Mayo last night. Today we met up for coffee at this little Italian shop after IVIG. Trevor and Ben are having fun roaming the grounds here at the Transplant House, our home away home. They are currently playing pool while I rest. I will be here for 6-8 weeks, same room 705 Second Street , Room 24 Rochester, MN 55902.
Trevor is a good friend of mine from Fairbanks and I am so grateful that he is willing to donate his kidney. Here is a pic from Casner Glacier, one of my favs. Typical Trevor picture, he is always goofing around and super fun to hang with. Trevor is known for his great laugh and Liser and Trevor's birthday last year we laughed a lot (aka the toiletini)....
...also his great dance moves, he is always king of the dance floor with the ladies...
Thanks to all of our friends in Fairbanks for their awesome support. Thanks to everyone for making our temporary move to Mayo easy. Thanks to our friends and family everywhere for all of their help and good thoughts. Well, back to facebooking for Ben, Trevor and I...as I said on Facebook, we are dorks.

Mayo in Winter

Ben arrived today and it is great to have him here. We received 6" of new snow last and it is super windy .

Ben and I at IVIG, Intervenous Immune Gobulin is a treatment that you have after PlasmaExchange to trick your body into thinking you have antibodies. Trevor will be in tonight to Mayo and hopefully he does not get stuck in the snow storm.

Update

They had an ice sculpture contest the other day. Now it is all covered in snow. Here in Minnesota, it is cold and windy(not as cold as Fairbanks). We did get the cross match numbers back today and they were OK. I do have to have a catheter placement surgery tomorrow and start Plasma Exchange, followed by IVIG. Together it is about 6 hours of treatment a day, 10 hours on dialysis days. I have this routine Friday, Saturday and Sunday. We do another blood test Monday morning and hope for the best! So good thing I am starting my sweater project today, I have plenty of time to knit!

Mayo Clinic

We have been at Mayo Clinic since Wednesday and so far so good. They ran a crossmatch blood test with Trevor and I and the results were still good. So far no plasma exchange/IVIG routine, but we have another test Monday. We are going to take it day by day with the blood tests until the Transplant on Feb. 24th. We decided to get out of town today and drove to Lanesboro, which is a ghost town in winter. This picture is suppose to be of a waterfall in the background, but all I seemed to get was the brown tress. The sun was shining and it was great to be out walking around.
My mom and I went out to this bad Italian restaurant for dinner, but then we ran to the Gelato store and they were closed. I gave them my "Pella sad face" and they totally opened up! Score!

The Gelato, I love this stuff. I guess I won't be posting any crazy AK pictures for awhile, but the Midwest is fun too.

Last Weekend in Fairbanks

We had a busy last weekend in Fairbanks. i fly on Wednesday morning to Mayo Clinic in Rochester and begin the pre transplant tests. I was able to have one more big knit session with Kristen on Sunday and of course Kita came to visit Pella. they are totally buds!

Zoe

Zoe Strauss was in town this weekend, a good photography friend of Ben's. She is really doing well and it was exciting for Ben and all of us to spend time with her. She loved Fairbanks and Alaska and her positive energy was just great. We headed out to Ivory Jacks for a burger and show her a good local Fairbanks restaurant.


We drove up Murphy dome road to Jackson's for a house warming party. Here is Ben giving the old grizzly bear a pat.


his driveway was long and on the way out the truck would not engage the 4 wheel drive because of the cold and we got stuck! luckily there were plenty of people to help.
ben and i have been looking for houses lately. this can be tough in Fairbanks, where literally anything goes. here the DC10 house next to this house off the old Steese we were looking at.

Socks and Scotch and Brown and Cob's

we had a great night of scotch and socks. Brown finished my socks and they are awesome!
Brown, me, and the socks. They are the sweetest knit socks I have owned, they have a very intricate leaf pattern.
close-up of the leaf pattern.

as the night went, the boys drank more scotch and we took out more yarn. i came up with three new projects to take me through being at Mayo for the transplant. I leave in a week. Brown gave me this cool hank of yarn that is from a local sheep named "Jessie", it's for a scarf for Ben...it is great to know where your wool comes from.

skijoring

we found a great new skijor spot that Ted told us about. Pella was fired up tonight and pulled the entire time. the trails were sweet and of course no one was there.

Happy Birthday Ed!

we went out for a nice dinner to Lemongrass to celebrate my good friend Ed's birthday. Ed is a seriously generous and adventurous friend. if you have not become a fan of his blog about his adventures than you should. he lives the quintessential Alaskan life and i love his energy for life and the crazy trips he goes on(once in awhile with me). of course after our trips, we "hang out" at Ed's, his house is almost as famous as his "into the wild" blog post about going to the bus....if you have not read it, click this!
Ed skiing out after a trip into the wild, bus 142. Ben and I are so glad we have become great friends....not bff's, cause i can not become obsessed with Coldplay :-) i am looking so forward to our next packrafting trip!

Colorado Creek Cabin

ben and crew starting out our 14 mile ski into Colorado Creek Cabin in the White Mountains. we had the most unbelievably warm weather for Jan. in AK and the trail was a little icy. Pella has not been on a trip since our 50 below Tolovana ski and she was loving it! Ann arranged this cabin trip, it was her birthday..so we had a little party too. It was a big trip for me, the first one without a catheter in my neck. Ben did not have to carry my gear, I was able to carry a backpack and push my skiing. I can not imagine living somewhere you could not do this stuff every weekend!
Tina and Fernie near the start of the ski.
this is the view from Colorado Creek Cabin!
the four girls getting ready to ski out and onward. Tina and Ann were heading farther into the white mountains to another cabin and another 30 miles. Kat, Ben and I came in and out the same 14 mile trail to the cabin.
Ann is wearing the purple and yellow pimp hat, Kat drug the hat all the way out here..among other things.
Ben dealing with four girls having a birthday party and talking about relationships. he did read us the Cremation of Sam McGee, a classic.

Pella and I skiing out today.

Carl Sandburg High School

Carl Sandburg High School, were I went, was selected to play at the Inaugural Parade! I was not in band or anything, but still pretty cool.

Facebook

Trevor is my facebook wingman, I had some questions tonight and he fixed them. Now we are all watching Weeds, again.
Believe it or not this mess is becoming an ear flap hat with cables.

knitting party!

Love the knitting parties. The catheter removal went soo smooth, I am enjoying my first shower in years today among other benefits of not having the tubes hanging out of my neck. Time for a nice sexy outfit with a v-neck too!

still -42

seriously long cold snap. square tires this morning as i drove in to UAF. i think we have relief by this weekend. Pella will be glad not to be wearing her booties.

Alyeska from Dean

Alyeska

we decided to get out of town this weekend and ski Alyeska. we had a blast, there was no one skiing and half the mountain was closed due to low temps, -12F without a wind chill, come on that is warm! it is still -41 tonight in Fairbanks and no let up for another 10 days, very long cold snap....so we were thrilled to tele ski in the warm weather!
i have no pics skiing because my camera froze up from the wind. we did traverse and climb to the very top so we could find some powder. this is the view from the top, you can see Cook Inlet at the bottom!

Kristen(above), Trevor and Mark (Ed's 14 year old nephew visiting) were on snowboards and the rest of us telemark skied. Mark sure is one adventurous kid, he has been flying up to Alaska for years to go on crazy adventures with Ed. no complaining either, he is a fun kid.
birthday boy Ben heading towards Max's Face. Ed and Kristen had furnace problems while we were gone skiing, the pipes froze, the whole mess...Fairbanks can be trying with weeks at -40 , but we still love it.

Happy New Year, 2009!

we rang in the new year, still in this cold snap at 40 below. we had great pasta, wine, some had good scotch and of course fireworks.
Brown knit me this incredible lace leaf sock! the other one is coming soon.
outside for our personal fireworks show from their neighbor Jamie.
Ben photographing the smoke after the fireworks with my old cheap camera, it has a huge delay.
well here is one, what a fun way to ring in the New Year and we also knit for a couple hours.

cold snap

we just started a big cold snap here in Fairbanks, with a high of 35 below zero and lows to 50 and 60 below zero for the next 10 days. so instead of hunkering down, we go outside and make dance videos. this one was last night for Lisa and Dan's wedding in New Zealand. i have only posted a few snap shots not the video link because all the participants were to embarrassed. it was modeled after Beyonce's single ladies, i start out as Beyonce....then my back dancers enter....and it goes on from there, soo funny.
ben is in the cowboy hat with two squirt guns. we had to do it in one 2min shot right in front of Ed's house because it was so cold.