Springtime Updates
Hello everyone, and Happy April! I hope you're all staying safe and healthy. I have a few updates I wanted to share.
The first update is that I met with my recipient again a few weeks ago. Just like before, we did a socially distanced meeting in Jill's parents' backyard with myself, Jill, my recipient, and her mom. My recipient made us chocolate chip peanut butter cookies that were delicious. She also drew a picture with Jill's and my favorite Pokémon on it (Espeon and Aerodactyl), and even made some small sculptures of our favorite Pokémon and of a little kidney for us. They're really great; she really is a talented artist! We talked about a lot of things, from COVID and traveling to riding horses and video games. One thing my recipient's mom told us was that my recipient was always really pale because of her kidney disease. However, since getting her new kidney, she has more color in her cheeks now. My recipient was also really talkative, which was great to see. She was so talkative that she was even telling us, in front of her mom, about times she did things she wasn't supposed to, like playing her Nintendo Switch at the dinner table! After they left, her mom texted me later to say that she's only that talkative with us. I don't know if it's just because we've now spent a bunch of time together (both in-person and virtually through Animal Crossing) or because of the special connection we share, but I was really touched to hear that.
In addition, my recipient's mom is from New Zealand, and when we saw them, she brought some souvenirs from there that her family sent us. I'm so grateful that they went through the trouble to send us gifts, and it's not the first time they've done that! It's cool to think that I also now have a connection with people literally on the other side of the world.
Another update is that Jill and I got both of our COVID vaccine shots in March. We got emails from our local health district inviting us to sign up for appointments, and we managed to get them for that same day. We received the Pfizer vaccine, so we got another shot 3 weeks later. Just like I had heard, the second shot hit both Jill and me like a truck. Almost 15 hours to the minute after we got our second shots, we both began to experience symptoms. By the afternoon, we both had intense body and joint aches, so much so that we both had to lay in bed. By the evening, we both had chills and fevers, and mine even went over 103°F. I woke up a couple of times during the night feeling too hot and had to cool myself down. When we woke up the next morning, all of our symptoms were gone. All in all, I'll take less than 24 hours of feeling like garbage over having COVID or needing to be hospitalized. It's worth it to protect myself and others.
My last update for now is a wonderful gift my wife got me: a necklace with a pewter kidney charm. I'm normally not one for jewelry (except for my wedding ring, of course), but I love my kidney necklace so much that I wear it every day. I generally don't have the highest self-esteem, so I like to use the necklace as a reminder of the way I made a positive impact on someone's life. It's sometimes easy to forget this in the day-to-day, but having a reminder hanging around my neck often helps me feel better.
That's it for now. I hope you're all doing well and can get vaccinated soon so we can all go back to normal. Here's to a great April!