Well, here we are, the weekend before Thanksgiving. November is wrapping up, and the most annoying of the dark fall is nearly behind us. Twinkling lights and Christmas music are a week away from soothing our souls (at least if you're a purist like me).
The big update from this past week was that my friend's daughter Meredith got her shiny new liver, as they'd been referring to it since a nurse wrote it on her update board one day. When I last posted about it, they didn't think she'd need a transplant, but when they confirmed it was indeed Wilson's Disease, the only cure for that is a transplant, so she went to the top of the list. Thankfully they seemed to stabilize her late last week and she was feeling good enough to move around the hospital a bit and see friends and family. They got an approved cadaver liver on Saturday, and the surgery went well. Obviously the recovery is going to be significant, but she's pinking up and they're keeping a close eye on everything in the meantime. She's doing great, getting more active around the hospital and keeping herself busy. It's so miraculous and amazing. Her mom said that her liver was so gray and rough-looking, which means she's been having damage for a long time. But because she's an elite athlete, her body was compensating for it all this time. She had zero symptoms while she was breaking swimming records and going to homecoming just a few weeks ago, until she had dark urine on Halloween. To go from that to a transplant in less than three weeks is insane. I hope she and her family can get some good therapy to process all of this, because I feel like any normal human would need that. I keep putting myself in that position and can't even fathom it. Carter's stuff felt jarring enough, and that built up over a solid couple months, with lesser suspicions of something (but maybe not UC) for many months prior to that. I can't even imagine how they must be reeling from this, even though their faith is strong and they feel incredibly supported by the entire community. More than 600 people signed up to be a living donor, and people around the world were commenting and sending messages of support. Local news stations and social media accounts were sharing her story, too. It was actually sort of surreal to see those things pop up on my feed, knowing they were there not because I was friends with her mom, but because the entire community was rallying around her. Even Craig's cousin shared her story, not necessarily knowing I knew the family. It's been such an amazing story, and I truly hope that the world gets to hear more of it (when and if they're ready) because it's so inspiring. And Meredith is such an exceptional girl that I think it's likely she will take this experience and make the best of it somehow, whether it's raising awareness for organ donation or starting some sort of outreach program or something. She's just that kind of girl--as is her mom, who was the winner of every essay or coloring contest as a kid. No joke, her mom made it into the Rose Bowl Parade one year by winning a contest! The family has felt so supported, which is great to see. The road ahead is still long and complicated, no doubt, but I hope Meredith gets to resume normal-ish teenagerhood in time to enjoy the rest of her senior year. For now they'll be in Pittsburgh for a couple more months, at least.
In other news, I almost had to host Thanksgiving dinner, but I think we've figured it out now. With Craig's parents on the verge of a move, his brother just having moved, and the ongoing family dynamics being tricky, we were considering hosting both sets of parents. My mom has been hinting that I should learn how to make a turkey, so I figured maybe this would have to be the year. But the logistics of figuring it out myself felt precarious, and in the end I offered up coming in early to go through the full prep with my mom, making a few dishes myself, and having Craig's parents to their house. It's a shorter drive and a higher probability of a delicious, calamity-free meal. As long as we avoid politics, it should actually be really nice. And then, maybe next year it can be at our house instead. It'll be a little different than what we're used to (like one meal instead of two), but I think a quieter meal will be nice this year. We did get an invite to Craig's brother's separately (although we don't actually even know where they're living right now--it's a long story). We may go there for dinner, but suffice it to say that this is a bit of an unorthodox holiday and I'm a little worried about what others might look like on that side for the foreseeable future. I said we should just tell them that as our Christmas gift we'd like them to work with a mediator to work out their issues so we can hopefully have better family gatherings down the road. I'd rather not have to figure out how to fit in two separate gatherings (or three, with the extended family) on that side alone. Word of advice: Avoid alcohol and cohabitating with your parents as an adult, as there's about a million ways things could go sideways.
As of Friday, Jacob is officially on break. He's not back in school literally until December. Lucky duck! He will be staying pretty busy with basketball, though. Carter has the standard three days, and because of my Thanksgiving dinner tutorial, I will have the same. It's a bit mind-blowing that we're already to this time of year. Part of me is eager to jump into the holidays, and part of me is already internally freaking out a bit. There are certain decorations I can't wait to get out, and I love working from home with my Christmas tree on. But I'm scared that my tree won't work this year, and I just know the decorating process is a lot. I was half considering putting up my trees early if we were hosting Thanksgiving, but thankfully I don't have to worry about rushing that now--although I've been putting up my theme tree early the last couple years to give myself a head start. Everything I need is already set aside in a separate bin, so it's a pretty quick and easy process, and it's an hour or two that I don't need to spend when I'm on to the rest of my decorating. I've gotten a tiny head start on gift buying, with a few things under my belt, but I know I will have a long way to go!
Speaking of basketball, the season is almost upon us. Practices have started and Jacob is slowly but surely working his way in. This team will definitely be better than his old one, but it'll be an interesting thing to watch how they evolve. About a week ago Jacob was back to thinking he wasn't going to be playing at all. It was sort of caused by a misinterpretation of something his travel coach said, and it got Jacob thinking that it wasn't worth risking playing because his spring travel season is the big one. But that's not at all what he meant, and everyone--from that coach to his trainer--is telling him he needs to play. So, we'll see how it goes. He's just not feeling confident yet. His left leg still isn't as strong as he wants it to be, and he's probably lost a step or two from missing so much playing time. But I know he'll get there. It will definitely be a weird full-circle moment when it happens, to be back on that court for BK again, but I'm starting to get excited. Nervous excited, but excited.
I did try this week to clear my mind via reorganizing. I was so over the mess of shoes and other things that Jacob leaves in our dining room, as well as the iffy shoe racks we'd had to attempt to contain the mess. They weren't getting used properly and looked terrible. Then I found a really nice looking, modern shoe shelf with a couple drawers and a wood top on Amazon. I got it for around $50, and it really does look nice. With that in place, I moved the shoe rack that was in its spot to the corner of our entryway holding a bunch of other shoes, which fit there better than the four cube storage that was there before. That moved back to the spot underneath our mail station/chalkboard where it started out before, but was replaced by an additional cheap-but-ultimately-unstable shoe rack, which has now been retired. I got dollar store cubes drawers to clean up the random stuff stashed in there, which made a world of difference. On Friday Jacob finally cleaned up a couple of his messes (I nearly heard angels sing, it's been so long), and if I can get him to utilize the new shoe shelf for more than a couple weeks, that will be a game-changer. And if that area looks less chaotic, so will my brain be! It's already been such a mood booster, which felt stupid until I realized that it's not necessarily the clutter itself that brings me down, but the constant reminder of things I should be doing better. That's not fair to me, but it's the truth. An added bonus is that the new rack has another surface to decorate, just in time for Christmas decor! But for now it looks nice with a basket of fall flowers that's lived on my dining room table for years. I put my still-thriving Aldi clearance mum in its place!
So far this weekend has been the continuation of the de-chaos-ing, from clearing off the table to cleaning up a couple more piles, to assembling Jacob's new computer chair and finally getting my new computer up and running. My old one got super slow, Windows 10 was no longer supported, and the button busted off my CD drive, so it was time. It arrived shortly before our Honey weekend and I just didn't have the time or energy to work on it then. Then I kept putting it off, and now, finally, I'm working on transferring over all of my files. It's a process, going 30-50 GB at a time, but I'll get there. My other two goals of the weekend are to dust at least the main floor in preparation for Christmas decorations to come out next weekend, and to attempt to set up our new outdoor lights before it gets too cold. I sort of impulse-bought a couple lighted spiral trees at Aldi because I've wanted something more and people really seemed to like these, and I finally figured out (I think) how to set up electricity for things beyond the porch. And for $20 it was worth a shot. So, we'll see how that goes.
Otherwise, I'm mentally planning for Thanksgiving, getting in as many walks as I can before the weather turns again (sad when low 40s is the "nice" weather), and wishing I had more than three days off this coming week. Work is in a lull, but I still have a ton of stuff going on. Craig is crazy busy, too, with the season coming quickly and their staff still getting up to speed. It's made it a bit challenging to balance all of Jacob's needs, but we're managing. Carter is doing great, feeling good and officially on to eight-week intervals between infusions. It's a little scary, but he's done so great so far. He's up at last 20-25 pounds since early September. He's almost as tall as me and becoming more teenager-y by the day. It's going to be an interesting stretch coming up, and I guess I'm doing my one last deep breath before the holiday (and basketball) roller coaster starts again.
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