Haiku And

So much depends on
the singing of a bird on
a cold winter's day.


Green Bean two days after my last trip to Chicago.

He gets upset every time I leave him for more then a night and chews his feathers until he's naked.

His feathers are finally starting to come back in.



After my transplant the only feathers he had left were the ones he couldn't reach on his head.

So sad.

It's rough being little and green.

The poem is something I wrote soon after I got my first bird 20 years ago.

Next Stop, Chicago Marathon

Cellmates On The Run met their fund raising goal of $10,000 for the 2010 Shamrock Shuffle this weekend. The race is Sunday so it's not to late to help blow that goal out of the water!

Check it out.

Random Entertainment - Tilt Shift

Small life in Saxon Switzerland.

by Christoph Schaarschmidt



Music:
Rocky Votolato
Uppers aren´t Necessary

Children's Rare Disease Network

We decided this month's donation should go to Children's Rare Disease Network.

Children's Rare Disease Network provides education, support and resources to parents, families of children with rare diseases, as well as the researchers that support them. Diseases like Ivemark Syndrome and MODY syndrome. Diseases that are less understood and well, largely underfunded in the research spectrum.

You can find more information about CRDN here.

Just Because

For some reason the people in my life like to give me salt and pepper shakers. I'm not a particular fan of salt and pepper shakers, but I suppose it's better then being given candy dishes or sugar bowls and honestly, I've come to appreciate them for the gifts that they are and the thought behind each odd pair that I now own.

My most recent set are two love birds. They stand about 3 inches tall and my parrotlet seems to think they're pretty cool. He sat there and chattered at them until he got bored and went off to play with the parakeet.

He's a goofy little bird.

Bank Of America Shamrock Shuffle / Chicago Marathon 2010

It's that time of year again.

If you're thinking about running in the Bank of America Shamrock Shuffle 8k Sunday, March 21, 2010 or in the 2010 Chicago Marathon, October 10, 2010 please consider joining CellmatesOnTheRun in running for a cure for diabetes.

You can find information about CellmatesOnTheRun and the Chicago Diabetes Project here, and for a personal look at the work the CDP with diabetes research and islet transplantation feel free to peruse my blog or email me at parrotletzoo@gmail.com.

Oh and by the way, my liver biopsy was all normal like. I haven't heard if they found any islets in the tissue taken during the bipsy yet. I'll keep you updated as soon as I hear anything more.

Yayhealthylivers!

Home Again, Home Again, Riggity-jig

My gallbladder is out, I'm home, off pain meds and all is well.

Sounds great but the road was rough getting here. Because I have Situs Inversus or more accurately Situs Ambiguous. along with vascular abnormalities, my surgery took longer then normal. Four times longer. The surgery went well, the healing is also going well but the first few days I kept having muscle spasms in my abdomen that left me gasping for breath and well, crying, which really is not like me. I usually can handle pain. Not this time. I was a whiny blubbering baby about the whole thing. But damn, it hurt like hell!

Once one of the doctors figured out I was having muscle spasms and gave me a muscle relaxer the whiny blubbery-ness went away and I went home. Yay!

I also consented to having a liver biopsy done at the same time. I have tumors on my liver two of which have already been determined to be hemangiomas and another was one of those things no one is really sure about, so yeah, good times. I also gave permission so the researchers could look for islets in the liver tissue and all such happiness. I'll let you know what the results are as soon as I find out.

Keep your fingers crossed for tumor - benign, and islets - many.

Thankyouverymuch!