Please Don't Take Your Organs To Heaven. Heaven Knows We Need Them Here.

I am so blessed that my Mom is an organ donor and gave me one of her kidneys. The wait list for a transplant is years. I was told that I would probably be on the transplant list for at least 3 years if I didn't have a living donor. That is for a kidney, there are people in need of a heart, a liver, lungs, tissue, bone marrow, and things I can't even think of right now.  All you have to do in order to be an organ donor is sign your driver's license. I don't understand why more people aren't organ donors. I know I can't be a living donor, but I am a donor according to my driver's license. I want them to use anything and everything I have when I die. It's a way for me to live on. I am one person, but let's just say that the doctor's are able to use my liver and my heart, I will be saving two lives not to mention countless family and friends who will have their Mom, Dad, Brother, Sister, Son, Daughter, Cousin, Aunt, Uncle, Niece, Nephew, best friend back. I mean what if my heart goes to the future President of The United States? What if I save the person who finds a cure for cancer? What if I save a child who, without my lungs, wouldn't of been able to graduate high school? You don't just give a future to one person. You give memories to mom and dads and families. You give someone their first loves. You give someone their best friend. You give someone and their family a wedding. You give someone and everyone around them, life. People are able to keep a little bit of their innocence because they will not know what it's like to lose a child, a parent, a family member, or someone they know sooner than they should.

I am so blessed because last year I thought every holiday and birthday of my children was the last one I would celebrate and because of my Mom, I have celebrated at least one more. We don't know what will happen tomorrow, that's in God's hands. But because of my Mom, I at least know I have a tomorrow until God calls me to go home.

Merry Christmas and Happy New Years

These past couple of weeks have been crazy busy for us. The kids have been home for Christmas break and I have enjoyed their company. We had a wonderful Christmas filled with family and love. Then the kids and I had a camp out in the living room on an air mattress for New Years. They fell asleep 10 or 15 minutes before midnight leaving me to ring in the New Year all by myself. And then I went to bed about 15 after midnight. I have a good feeling about this year and I am going to do all that I can to make sure that it's different than the years past. Last year, for Christmas Tim got me a ring. It was gorgeous, but needed to be sized and it came back looking funky. Soooo, the jeweler sized another one for me and it came back equally ugly. I'm all about 2nd chances, but after the 2nd ring came back in awful condition, I decided to not go with the ring after all. So this year, I made sure my present from Tim was a little more... ummmm, how you say... permanent. I got a tattoo on my left forearm. I already had stars placed up close to the bend of my arm and now in addition to my stars I have a gorgeous pink and purple swallow. It's very girly and beautiful. It is definitely me. But wait... we still aren't done... Monday, I go back to get a blue and green swallow with dog tags in it's beak on my upper arm, along with backgrounds for both birds and another star. Then I will have filigree and strands of pearls connecting the 2 birds with the stars in the middle (pictures will come when it is finished). I'm excited and scared at the same time. This tattoo will be a total of 6-7 hours of work. And though I have a high tolerance for pain, I'm a little surprised at myself that I'm voluntarily putting myself through pain. Of course it won't stop there because my end goal is to have a sleeve and I still have the elbow side of my arm to do. I asked my phlebotomist about the tattoos to make sure they wouldn't hinder her from taking blood and when she told me it wouldn't, she advised that I get whatever work done quickly. She said if I ever had to have a fistula put in, that I wouldn't be able to finish what I started. I'm at least 10 years away from needing dialysis again (hopefully I won't ever need dialysis again) but hey, we aren't guaranteed anything in life so I figured I would go ahead and do what I wanted as far as tattoos are concerned now. This is something I have always wanted and I'm out of my 20's and more sure of what I want for the rest of my life. This might be to my advantage... my kids saw how sore I was before it healed and they don't want one (yet) because "they use needles. And I don't like needles... needles hurt mama". They are 4 and 5 and who knows how they will feel when they are older, but at this moment I'm proud they aren't giving into "parent" pressure. Hopefully, when they get older, they won't give into peer pressure. One can hope right?