For those of you who have been kind enough to ask about the First Mate, I just wanted to give you an update on her status. The collection of doctors we've gathered have decided that her kidney function has dropped off too much for her to wait for the transplant for treatment, and so she will be starting dialysis tomorrow. She'll go in to have a shunt installed in the morning, have a dialysis treatment, stay overnight for observation, have another treatment in the morning, and hopefully will be ready for release in the afternoon. While it sounds like a setback, this actually will help relieve the symptoms of kidney failure that trouble her the most, and should be a marked improvement in her quality of life. We're both optimistic.

One of our friends from Twin Cities Marriage Encounter (where we volunteer as board officers) has volunteered to donate her kidney to the First Mate and so far, the tests have been going well. She needs to go through an extensive physical evaluation still, but her tissue match is excellent. If all goes well, the transplant should take place in a couple of months. We're also hoping for a cadaver pancreas transplant -- if we're really lucky, we'll be able to time it so that both can be done at the same time. If not, the pancreas will be done a few months later. So things are definitely looking up. Fortunately, we live in the capitol of transplants, as the University of Minnesota pioneers most of that research in the United States.

Keep your fingers crossed, and I'll continue to keep you updated. Here's the First Mate with the Little Admiral from last Christmas:

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