Wedding Wednesday-- Something That's Really Not That Fun...Really

24 Days 'Til the Wedding

Sometimes I wonder what you're supposed to feel like when you're wedding is in three weeks.  Stressed? Irritated? Excited? Sad?  I don't know!  I feel a little calm. I have a lot to do! LOL Story of my life it seems like.  Story of this engagement!  I've had "a lot" to do since I became engaged last March!  Something is seriously wrong with me, people.  If you have "a lot" to do for more than a year then something is really really wrong.  But you know what's good about not working?  Even though I have a lot to do, I finally feel like I'm doing things.  I am really going to cherish this next week and a half. It's practically all I have left before I go back to the office and wedding planning has to compete with a busy workday.  OK so, what we did:

• We're on the books!  Ben and I went down to the courthouse and made things semi-official.  We signed paper work, we raised our right hands, we said yes, we signed papers again, then we waited.  Five minutes later...we had our marriage certificate!  I'm a little slow, and apparently so is Ben, so at our "celebration dinner" with Jocelyn at The Burger Joint we had to keep asking each other if we're married or not.  We're not married yet, but the state now knows of our intentions.  We still have to get it signed by our officiant, my second cousin Rev. Dr. Sallie Cuffee.  She'll sign it after our wedding ceremony. Then we'll be married. The next time I go there will be to change my name! Gasp! Last three weeks as just an Edwards, before I enter the realm of hypenate-dom.
• Ben ordered yet ANOTHER suit! I won't even get started on this.  But this is the last straw.  As long as he looks good and feels good, I'm good.
• We reviewed our budget!  This is one of my most hated activities but it has to be done.  We've paid three vendors fully, which is great.  But there's more to come.  I guess the cool thing about these vendors is that most of them only take cash.  Which means there's not a super high credit card bill to pay after the wedding.  At first I looked at this as such an inconvenience.  But one year later, I'm thankful, because once the wedding is over I'll finally have money and be able to save like I really want to. And as a newly married couple, Ben's and my "What We Want to Save For" list is pretty long.  

And now for something we did that no one should have to do ever again in their lives:  we started working on the seating chart for the wedding.   Luckily, we finished.  And as a result of that process I've developed my tips for putting together a wedding seating chart when you're having a big wedding:  

Tip #1:  It's kind of a nice thing to put all the parents together, with their parents, if it works out.  We're seating 10 people to a table.  And even a part-time wedding planning cynic like me can see the benefits of sitting some of the most important people to the bride and groom at the same table.  

Tip #2:  If you're having a big wedding, 150 plus according to DC area stats (where the average wedding is 100 people), it's good to divide everyone into categories.  Some of our categories included "AU PPL" (my friends from college), "Old Friends" ( people not in the bridal party whom I've known forever), and "People with Kids."  The purpose of this was to make sure we didn't put certain types of people at tables where they would be uncomfortable.  For example, I chose to sit all the people who brought kids at the same tables, while my college friends are mostly divided up at tables with people who are in a similar age range.

Tip #3:  It's nice to put people who know each other together, but sometimes it really doesn't work out.  This is especially difficult when someone is coming by themselves and is only really close to one person at the wedding.  At the end of the day, you just hope that everyone is nice to everyone at each table.

Tip #4:  Try not to stress out about who's sitting where and whether or not they're going to like it.  When I worked on the seating chart by myself, while I was recovering from surgery at home, I did this a lot. And not much got done.  But as soon as Ben jumped in, it was like the seating chart was completed in 10 minutes.  That's because Ben is no-nonsense!  And we really don't have time to stress about who's going to be uncomfortable in what spot. That said I think we took a lot of people's personalities into consideration when making this list, and for the most part, no one should be scrambling to try to find a seat. Since it's a wedding, I'm sure there will be at least three people who will complain.  But if we only have three complainers out of 180 people, I'll take that.  I'd consider that a win.

Next Up...
Jocelyn and I will spend the next week completing our DIY projects and I've got a few more payments to mail off and several emails to write.  I guess there really are no more big things to do.  No more research, really.  Just a lot of emails, online ordering, and typing up timelines/schedules/emails to vendors.  I'm feeling good about this wedding.  Things might just go OK.   

In other wedding-related news!

My best friend since high school and one of my bridesmaids, Sajia, is getting married this weekend to her boyfriend of 10 years!!!  Sajia and I have been through several of phases of life together.   And now, we're about to enter a new phase together, wife-dom, which is super exciting.  I can't wait to watch Sajia get married to her longtime love this weekend and get tons of advice from her about married life since she'll be ahead of me by three weeks!   I'm so thankful for her friendship, and can't wait to see how God blesses her and Imran's marriage.  

The friend is the man who knows all about you, and still likes you.  

~Elbert Hubbard

We've both changed a lot, and I'm glad we still like each other  :D 

 

Livin for the Weekend

First visit to my beloved DC Metro Church since the transplant. 

"My hope is in you God

I am steadfast, I will not be moved

I'm anchored, never shaken

All my hope is in you."

Hope's Anthem, William Matthews

"We Did It!" and More Tales from My Hospital Stay

2 Weeks with the Kidney

"Congratulations! The surgery is over!" were the first words I heard while coming out of anesthesia.  In my head, I said "GOD...THANK YOU. Thank you."  I couldn't quite speak yet.  Well, that's a lie.  Because the first words I said were "PAAAAAIIIINNN.  PAIIINNN." And to this day I don't really know if I was actually in that much pain.  I mean, yes, I had just been cut.  And yes, I probably should have been in pain.  But could I actually feel it, and I mean really feel it at that time?  I'm not so sure.  But I guess it was just my automatic reaction to coming out of anesthesia knowing that I'd just had major surgery.

"What?  You're in pain?" the nurse said.  "Here."  She handed me a button attached to a wire connected to a box on an IV stand.  Those of you who have stayed in the hospital before know what this is.  For those of you fortunate enough to never have experienced this, that button is what connected me to my pain medicine:  hydromorphone aka dihydromorphinone aka dilaudid aka morphine aka...all hell, let's just call it what we know it is...CRACK! OK!  Let's just be real.  It's hospital grade crack in an IV.   So of course, I press the button, and I'm out. Unconscious. 

"Here! Want some water?" The nurse holds the straw from a styrofoam cup filled with ice water in it up to my mouth.  I suck down the water as if I had never had ice water before.  Then I hit the button.

"Here! Want some water?" The nurse holds the straw from a styrofoam cup filled with ice water in it up to my mouth.  I suck down the water as if I had never had ice water before.  Then I hit the button.

"Here! Want some water?" The nurse holds the straw from a styrofoam cup filled with ice water in it up to my mouth.  I suck down the water as if I had never had ice water before.  Then I hit the button.

No, that's not a copy paste error.  The previous three paragraphs are meant to be an exact representation of what coming out of deep anesthesia connected to an IV of hospital heroin is like after surgery.  It was literally "Crack Button," pass out, wake up, water, "Crack Button."  I did this for, according to my family, 3-4 hours following the completion of the transplant.  

At some point in there, Ben and my mom came to visit me.  I only sort of remember this part, mostly because my eyes would only stay open for seconds at a time because the Hospital Heroin pulsing through my veins would force my eyes shut.  

During my time in recovery, I was allowed to see my dad for a few minutes.  The nurses wheeled his bed over to mine. I don't remember our conversation fully. But I recall saying "We did it, Dad."  And I remember him saying "Yeah, we did."  

* * *

Once I arrived in my private room at the hospital (from what I've heard this is a pretty big deal, to have you're own room) I was greeted by my fiance, sisters, aunts, my uncle and my grandma.  I think I was happy to see everyone, even if I could barely open my eyes and had to squint because my glasses were taken before I went into surgery.

And for some reason I just couldn't keep my hand off the "hospital crack" button.  I just kept pressing it, falling into some sort of half sleep, then waking up to pump my fist and say "We did it!" according to my sister Jocelyn, who derived some pleasure from taking videos of me in a morphine-induced coma with her iPhone.  

Even in this trippy state, where I just barely was able to absorb what transpired in the previous hours, I was celebrating, sort of.  I think I was mostly proud of the fact that I let the doctors put me to sleep for several hours and perform organ transplantation on my dad and I.  Like...what?! That just sounds crazy doesn't it?  I feel like it does.  Who gets organ transplants?! Well, apparently I do.  And my dad...apparently he's a super hero because he's one of those people who donates his organs to save another person's life.  

In the moments when I was able to comprehend things being said to me I gathered that the transplant was a success; that my dad's kidney was a perfect match with my blood and tissue type; that once they received my dad's kidney and hooked it up to my arteries and veins and stuff, it started producing urine immediately, taking over for the two kidneys in my body that were barely doing anything; that I am lucky to be ALIVE because the surgeon almost cancelled the surgery when they discovered that I had NO blood in my body!!  Yeah. That right there...that's God.  Because I would have been A) pissed if they had decided to cancel the surgery after putting me under and putting me through all this stress; and B) dead if God hadn't intervened and said "Um, no, Jewel's gonna make it through the surgery, with 1 pint of blood, because I said so."  I'm so thankful that I survived (can't believe I had no blood!) and I'm happy that the kidney worked immediately.  

For my first examination by the doctors, early in the morning on the day after the surgery, I learned that my creatinine level was 1.1.   Creatinine is basically chemical waste that your kidneys filter out of your blood, and nearly all of it is supposed to leave your body when you pee. If you're kidneys aren't working right, you don't pee out this waste. It floats around in your blood and makes you SICK.  When I my kidneys started failing, my blood had a ton of creatinine in it.  So to hear that my dad's kidney was actually making me better was pretty great.  And then I fell asleep.  It was the drugs, I tell ya! The drugs made me do it.  

But really, I was happy.    At that moment, hearing that my kidney function was normal, I was happy, and every day since then I've been pretty happy.  And grateful.  And very aware that this thing, my dad's kidney, buried inside of me, is what's keeping me going every single day. 

Wedding Wednesday: 1 Month!

30 Days 'Til the Wedding

OK y'all.  Things just got a little bit real. Or more real. The wedding is officially in one month. 

YES.  WOW.  That means officially I'm not going to be "dating" anybody anymore.  Oh I know, I know.  Married people like to say "But you still have to date your spouse! Make them feel special!  Date night!" etc etc. But no.  Just no, married people.  It's not the same thing.  As my sisters put it so kindly:

Danyelle:  "Jewel, how does it feel?  You're not going to be a 'single ass lady' anymore."

Jocelyn:  "Yeah. You're gonna be a 'married ass bi%ch." 

Danyelle:  "With a ring on it."

Yeah.  One more month  until I become a 'married ass bi#ch."  Awesome!

This is the first Wedding Planning post in like two weeks I think.  You should know that after I wrote that post I did nothing until I guess May 10 when I resumed my planning activities.  It was great to dive back into getting things done, knowing that the wedding is just a few weeks away.  It's pretty great actually.  I can really really REALLY say, things are coming together. I'm sure I've written that before but it's not like this.  Things are legit coming together.  It's kind of a great feeling.  OK sooooo here's what I did:

• DIY Review: I resumed the hunt a little "photo legacy project" that my sister and I are working on.  It's basically a showcase of old wedding photos from all the married couples that are attending our wedding.  I really really hope it comes together.  Jocelyn and I took a major leap forward with this project last week when we ordered the display that we're going to use to show the photos.  Really looking forward to putting this together.
• Guest list:  we closed out our guestlist!  Officially have 180 people attending the wedding.  Just a little bit big!  A little bit!  But a lot of our favorite people are coming and I guess we just have too many favorites.  I'm just happy this part is finished because that makes the next parts of planning just a tad bit easier.  This includes figuring out how many tables we need, how many centerpieces and flowers, how many menu cards, and how many high chairs for kids.  We have 17 kids coming.  Yep. 
• Along those same lines:  Jocelyn and I started working on the seating chart.  It's definitely not going to happen in five minutes.  But we're hoping to finish up a good first draft by the end of the week.  

And today, Ben and should be on our way to the courthouse to get our marriage license, which we have to use in the next 60 days.  

I'll end today's blog post with a special treat from our photographer.  Remember when Ben and I went to take engagement photos?  Well, they are HERE.  Our photographer, Vicki Grafton, has done an awesome blog post of all her favorite photos.  We really do love these photos.  I told Vicki these are like the best photos of us EVER and this is especially good because I actually look like I know how to take a good photo!  I'm still handicapped in the "taking photos" area of life, but when you have a talented photographer holding the camera anything is possible.

Enjoy our photos on Vicki's blog:Ben and Jewel's Engagement   http://vickigraftonphotography.com/blog/2013/05/jewel-ben-virginia-field/

Also....next week's post will be at the three-week mark. 
Whoa.

What Happens Before a Transplant

10 Days With Kidney

I cannot believe it's been almost two weeks since I wrote anything meaningful on this blog.  My fiance helped me keep the blog from disappearing into the realm of "blogs that we start and then never ever come back to again" by doing an ah-mazing guest post last Monday.  So I'm pretty thankful for that and him.  I think he did an excellent job of not only sharing his perspective on the whole kidney transplant event, but also describing what the mood and atmosphere were like for most of us really.  After editing Ben's post and blogging it, I turned and looked at him from my hospital bed and said "Why didn't you say you were feeling that way?! The whole time I thought you were calm but you were actually freaking out like me!"  It's probably for the best that he didn't tell me how he was really feeling, or else I would have gone into full scale panic mode. I was only flying at about half-staff with the nervousness and that was mostly due to my mom's and Ben's positive and supportive presence with me in the pre-op room. 

So we've heard what Ben has had to say about the surgery. Now it's my turn! For today's post, a list (obviously)!  ThingsThat Happen Before You Have a Kidney Transplant. And... go!

1.   You shower for the first time in a month.  Yes.  I....actually can't remember if I revealed that on this blog but the Thursday before the transplant, May 2, was my first shower since I had the PD Catheter placed.  Because the holes in my stomach were still healing and they didn't want me to get an infection, I'd been taking sponge baths.  Let me tell you, that first shower after 4 weeks of not showering felt so good, I didn't want to get out of the tub.  It was also the last time I would shower with the catheter. So to all of you wondering if my hair smelled when you saw me that one time out in that one place, the answer is...probably.

2.   You wake up pretty freaking early.  Kidney transplants have to begin in the morning.  That is the rule. Actually I don't know if it is. I just made that up. But we had to arrive at the hospital at 6 AM to check in.  Around 6:30 and 7:00 they called my dad and me back to the pre-surgery areas where we had our vitals checked and started having us get undressed. 

3.  You yell at your mom for touching your neck.  And she shouldn't have touched my neck! Especially, after the anesthesiologist had JUST come in and done something to it.  What had happened was the anesthesiologist asked me to turn and lift my head so that she could make a mark where my main artery was with a marker.  During surgery they inserted an IV with three different tubes into my neck to deliver transplant medicines and antibiotics directly to my heart during the surgery.  My mom, of course, because she's always touching me (my face, my hair, my neck), walked over to where I was laying in the pre-op area, balks "What is that?!" while trying to rub the marker off my neck.   OK soooo, I do watch House and I do watch the news. And that type of s*#t right there...that's the type of s*#t that will have you going into the operating room for a kidney transplant and coming out with no legs. Real talk. So of course I yelled "Don't touch me!" and cried for the nurse to bring the anesthesiologist back to redo the mark.  Fortunately, my mom did not manage to wipe off the marker spot and I probably shouldn't have yelled at her.  But I had to do what I had to do! I used to cover "wrong side surgery" for a health care publication.  That stuff is real.  

4.  You meet a lot of different doctors and nurses.  All during pre-op several nurses and doctors were coming in to introduce themselves, to let me know that they would working with the main surgeon to do the transplant.  Luckily at Inova, everyone was super nice and extremely accommodating. One thing that some people might find annoying (my mom was irritated by this) they ask you the same question over and over again: why are you going into surgery.  Kidney transplant.  I didn't mind this. I knew they just wanted to make sure all their ducks in a row and that everyone was in the right place.  This doesn't bother me because, like I said, I watch House and the news, and I know what can happen when there's a wrong answer to a question. Anything to keep everyone safe.  One of the nurses also, set up one of the three IVs I would have over the course of the procedure. 

5.  You wait for about an hour and a half.  After all of the above was done, my mom, Ben, and I waited in the pre-surgery room for about an hour and a half, until it was time for me to wheeled away.  During that time, I started to think, maybe the surgery won't even happen.  Yes, I wanted to be healthy.  Yes, I wanted to get a new kidney.  But did I want to undergo major surgery with risk of complications?  No, not really.  After meeting all the nurses and talking to the anesthesiologist, the reality of what was about to happen was kind of starting to get to me.  I didn't want to be put to sleep and I didn't want them to slice me open and spread apart my skin.  I didn't want to be cut and poked and prodded. I just wanted to magically be healthy.  So while we waited, there was a part of me that was wondering if the surgery would even happen.  Well, at 9:30 when the anesthesia nurse  came in and gave me "the good stuff" aka hospital strength Valium, it was time.  They wheeled me out of the room in my bed, wearing just a gown and a blanket. I barely had time to say bye to Ben and my mom, not that I would remember saying it anyways.  

The last thing I remember before the surgery started was me trying to roll onto the surgical bed, but just laughing uncontrollably instead of moving.  This may or may not have happened. And then I remember the lights on top of the ceiling as the nurses were strapping me onto the table. Then they gave me "oxygen."  And I was gone for about six hours.

There's something that happens in the seconds before surgery, where despite all the fear and accumulating anxiety your mind, and body, just sort of gives up and gives in to what's about to happen to you.  There's no room, space, or time to fight back or even say no. You deeply inhale the air being pumped through the oxygen mask and something inside says "Finally."  It's almost a relief that you've gotten to the point where you can't worry anymore, even if you wanted to, and you can't think about the may or may not happen. In those seconds before it all went dark, I thought "Finally. Time to find out if this is it.  If this will work.  Time to find out..."