To hear a story of someone truly inspirational go To The Moon & Back a story about local cyclist Dave Berning in Spokes Magazine. I remember meeting Dave a couple times on Chuck and Crista rides. I don't want to give away the surprising bits, but when Lance Armstrong was going through Chemotherapy, he tried to ride his bike once and got about a block down the street before he collapsed on the side of the road.

Terry bulldozed his house to the ground to send a message to the banks that were foreclosing on him. The message appears to me to be, "I am a crybaby loser that doesn't like to pay my debts, If you loan me money in the future, I can not be trusted to pay it back."

Disturbingly, this trend appears to be taking hold in America today. Here is a CNN article in 2008 describing people walking away from their mortgages. Here is a recent New York Times Article putting forth an argument for walking away from a mortgage...

I can understand someone walking away in a situation where there was fraud on the part of the mortgage company, there was a lot of that apparently going around right before the bubble burst, I can even see someone walking away if there was a medical issue or job loss. Apparently, there are people out there, who have the money to pay their mortgage but their house has lost value and they would rather walk away from their mortgage than pay it, so called "Strategic Defaults". I have a hard time understanding an adult, signing his/her name on a contract, and then reneging. This person wanted money from a bank so they signed a document stating they would pay the bank back. I've mostly bought new cars and they depreciate the second they leave the lot, I don't abandon them just because they've lost value. I just don't get it.

What happens going forward when people cannot be trusted to pay back a loan on a massive scale? Are there any consequences other than tighter lending standards and higher costs to borrow?

Since I received a transplant from my mom, my body developed antibodies to the 3 antigens of hers that I wasn't born with, the three antigens that Clair got when she was born. So, not only are we not a match, but my blood reacts to hers based on the antibodies I have developed.

Heather is getting tested now, the odds that we are a 6 out of 6 antigen match are the same (roughly 25%), but since I just came up Snake Eyes on Clair, I'm feelin' lucky.

Separately, I talked with Dr. Howard (Nephrologist) this week. He just completed reviewing the 2 year data on Belatacept and he's not convinced that "Bela" will be the solution for me. He's thinking that early withdrawal from Prograf (meaning they drop me down to 1 mg Bid quickly) will give me enough protection from rejection while not inducing the nephrotoxic side effects that accompany higher doses. That dichotomy is hard to wrap my head around; I need the drugs to stop rejection, but the drugs are toxic to the kidney.

Since my blood pressure had been high for a couple months, I was afraid that hitting my target weight would drop it to normal, which would feel really low to me. I asked for fluid. My weight at the end of treatment was 73.3 kilos (since I was still cramping, we decided to put my target weight at 74 kilos). That's 74 kilos with shoes, so it's about a kilo below my weight from the hospital on Tuesday.

Back in November when I was having the most problems with blood pressure and hospital visits, I was going up to 84 kilos between treatments. That's 10 kilos above where I should have been.

I had to wait for WALT to finish with another patient and he came down with the alternate equipment. Dr. Nazzal came in and said "take him down until he cramps." I was only 1 kilo over my target weight, but WALT was told to take off 5 kilos. After the treatment I weighed 74 kilos, my blood pressure was pretty close to human normal, so my target weight was way off. Since I didn't cramp during the treatment, I'm probably still above my 'real' target weight. Yesterday, one of my blood pressures was 122/77. I haven't had a pressure that low in months. Once I find my true target weight, my blood pressure should come down to the point where I don't need blood pressure meds.

In the meantime, my Nephrologist decided awhile back that he would only cover me for 30 days, we thought that would be enough time for me to get a transplant, but that is now unlikely. Since the Davita clinic I now attend is restricted to my nephrologist's practice, I'll have to switch clinics when I switch back to my old nephrologists (Metropolitan Nephrology). It means a longer commute...roughly 25 minutes each way, but hopefully it won't be for long.