The New Year started off busy for us. Courtney and I attended the C.O.R.E. meeting at the beginning of the month. There was discussion of having a table at the Dog Show the end of this month. Courtney combined her 2 interests, dogs and the awareness of organ donation, and ran with the project. She did a great job. We went to the Bayfront Convention Center to see our area on Friday and then set-up the booth on Saturday. We spent the last weekend of January at the Dog Show. Courtney had a great time and I think the group did a fantastic job of reaching out and getting donors. We had some asking if it was organ donations on dogs. It was cute. I just told them that it was for humans, but that if Pittsburgh would have let Courtney have a monkey kidney, she would have taken it!!!
Courtney had her clinic visit on Jan. 5th. The weather was good for the drive to Pittsburgh. Courtney is now able to stop the Valcyte pill. She had to take this for one full year after the transplant. It is the biggest pill she has had for the past year and she has done an excellent job of taking it every day without choking on it. Courtney is feeling good and looking good. Her numbers are holding steady for right now. She still has to have blood work done every month. This will continue to go on and it isn’t a bad thing. The best way to see what is going on with Courtney’s disease and the kidney transplant is through the bloodwork. She looks great on the outside, but the inside may be a different story. She now is able to wait 3 months before her next clinic visits. We will see both clinics in April.
Brandon finished the first half of the school year with high honors along with Courtney. I am so proud of both of them. They have been on the high honor roll their entire time in school. Brandon continues to weight lift after school. Brandon is a very big Steeler’s fan. He has been very faithful about watching every game. He also has his large wardrobe of Steeler’s clothing to wear.
I had my 3 month cancer doctor visit this month. I didn’t have to have anything removed this time. That is a good thing. I did have a scare though. He thought the cancer was back in my lymph nodes, so he did a few tests and I am still cancer free.
Courtney also started off this new year with a new tutor. Her new tutor is doing a great job. Courtney had to do 9 weeks of work this month. They managed to get all her work done by the end of January.
Courtney also spent the day at one of the Erie elementary schools helping her friend with GreySave to teach 2nd graders about the Greyhound dogs. Courtney loved doing this. She is great with the little kids when they divide the class in half and the kids go to pet the dogs and ask questions. She hasn’t worked her way up to giving the class presentation yet, but that may be coming. They did 2 class presentations in the morning, then the 3 of us went out for lunch and then back to do the last class.