Saturday, March 15, 2008

More organs means more human

So, apparently when you get a kidney transplant they leave the old ones in for at least a year. I never knew that.

Anyhow, my dad came through the operation pretty much with flying colors. We went to visit him yesterday and he was annoyingly cheerful. I'm sure that you're not supposed to actually be that peppy for at least a day after a surgery like that. Anyhow, the doctors say that he should be home by Wednesday with an unrestricted diet. We've already planned his welcome home meal. Unsurprisingly, it consists of foods that until a few days ago he wasn't allowed - Tomatoes and beans (in this case in the form of tomato salad and casoullet).

So yes, we're quite happy right now although from my understanding the major hurdle is the whole first month. Still, we're all cautiously optimistic. Thanks for all the support we've been getting from everybody else.

And on a very personal note. I'd like to extend my sincerest condolences and thanks to the family of the donor. Although we don't know who you are and you don't know who we are and never will, thank you. Your loss provided one kidney for my father, another for a second man, and a pancreas for a third. Thank you.

Thursday, March 13, 2008

Better late than never.

So after 3 years on the waiting list, my dad's finally getting a kidney transplant.

The soonest flight that I can get back to Calgary is 7:15 tomorrow morning. I don't care if this is supposed to be a relatively routine surgery. I don't think that Ill be sleeping much tonight.

Good luck, dad.

Saturday, March 08, 2008

The waiting game sucks

Here I sit, at work again.

I was here all last night until 8 this morning, at which point my coworker and I were relieved (unlike last weekend, we had just enough forewarning to allow us to work shifts). It was tiring, but the testing we were doing was relatively quick. By the time we were done starting one test, another would be done and equipment would have to be cleaned and reset. Repeat ad nauseum.

Tonight, the testing has changed. We're getting closer to the deadline, and the tests take longer. There is little in my life more frustrating than sitting here waiting for an 8 hour test to slowly tick down at the same time the deadline ticks down.

Also, daylight savings times. Most times I don't care about it at all. Tonight, if we didn't have the deadline, I would have been fine with only working an 11 hour shift rather than a 12 hour one. But we do have the deadline, and I'd realllly like that extra hour.

Oh, yeah. I'm also not happy with the snow we had on Friday. I'm sure that my contract explicitly stated that I would not see snow while I was down here. Ah well, at least I haven't had a chance to plant my herbs yet.

Tuesday, March 04, 2008

What's This?

One of the larger annoyances I had of working (pretty much literally) the entire weekend was that it was the nicest weather that we've had down here since autumn. The weather was in the 70s and bright and sunny and I was really looking forward to firing up the grill for the first time this year.

Obviously that didn't happen. "No biggie," says I. "I'll just enjoy cooking outdoors on Monday, or maybe Tuesday if Monday's too busy.

Well, yesterday was pretty much a full day torrential downpour which, while it ruined my grill plans I was still happy to get since it stopped raining the day that I planted my trees and I haven't had time to water them since.

However, when I woke up this morning, I was greeted by a strange sight:


Everything was covered by this cold, white stuff. It was sort of like tiny ice crystals, but very fine and delicate. It seems familiar for some reason.

No matter, we got more of it falling out of the sky for most of the morning, then it all melted away in about an hour.

I tell ya, Arkansas has some strange weather.

Monday, March 03, 2008

Wow.

Preface: I do like my job, and the company I work for, and most of the people I work with. Some days, though, are just bad. And sometimes those bad days all congregate together.

It's been a hell of a week. One that I won't soon forget. Some of the highlights include (in no particular order):

-A string of fuck-ups by yours truly.
-An electrical fire.
-Working for nearly 42 hours straight.*
-Getting showered in some rather unpleasant (read: not safe for human consumption) chemicals.
-Going into my bosses office and and asking him, quite literally, "how close to being fired am I?".**

I also learned something about myself. When given a situation where I have a choice between sitting on my ass waiting for somebody who knows what they're doing to get over and fix the (rapidly escalating) problem, or doing something that I know is completely futile and somewhat stupid in a vain attempt to solve the problem, I'll invariably choose option B. Yay me.

In conclusion, if you've phone in the last week and I've been rude to you, I apologize. As I said, it's been an interesting week. Hopefully in a couple more days I'll be recovered from it.

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*I'll admit that there were a couple of 5-minute cat naps around the 30-hour point, while I was waiting for a truck to show up, but that's it.

**Short answer: I'm not. But I do need to pay a little more attention to my work.