Seven Quick Takes No. 118: Transplant Celebration and Jeopardy reminder!!

I. 

OK , first of all--

Jeopardy on Monday. 

Check your local listings and all that. :-p 

II. 

Second: 

I'll be on Jen Fulwiler's radio show on the Sirius XM Catholic Channel on Monday! 

If you have Sirius, tune in. If you don't, there might be an iTunes link. I will try to post. 

III. 

On Sunday, my parents took me out to celebrate The Anniversary. We wanted to go to Fado, the place where we had eaten dinner right before I got my call, but it's an Irish pub that shows European Soccer, and there was a huge game on. So we went to PF Chang's instead, which is just as delightful.  

After that, my parents surprised me with a super-duper treat. 

Chocolate fondue, people. 

Sadly, I have no pictures of the Gloriousness that was Chocolate Caramel Toffee fondue, with magical pieces of fruit, a blondie, rice krispy treats, pound cake, and a brownie. Yes, all of that, per person. You got a lovely little tray of items to dip in the bubbling, magical chocolate. 

Guys, I would've married that fondue. Or at least licked the bowl if it wasn't so crazy hot. I didn't feel like burning my tongue. 

But it was so delightful. Right now, writing about it, I'm salivating. I want more! MOREEEE! 

IV. 

And if you're not an organ donor, and you have an iPhone, you can sign up RIGHT FROM THE PHONE, people! RIGHT FROM YOUR PHONE! You don't even have to go to a pesky website!

Do it. Really. Sign up. 

Oh, you want to know why? 

Well, if not knowing me isn't cool enough.....here's a list of some of the things I've done post transplant. 

V. 

Gone to California; gone to Boston; gone to NYC and Chicago; discovered the epic-ness that is the Outer Banks; been in a ton of theater; tried tofu; been on Jeopardy!; been to Disneyland; eaten in Beverly Hills; started pin collecting; gotten my own apartment; had several jobs; left the job to be a freelancer; written a few novels and a memoir (that eventually someone will want to publish....) 

VI. 

Seen my godson graduate from high school; seen my sister graduate from high school and college; seen my brother graduate from college and become a Steeler sportswriter; Penguin Stanley Cups!; been my cousin Paige's confirmation sponsor; pinned my sister at her graduation from nursing school; seen multiple small children be born that I never would've seen other wise (and that would have made the guy below SAD)

No transplant, no meeting Justin. He's only seven. 

Been in my other cousin Justin's wedding, and met his adorable kids....

Been in a million OTHER weddings, including this couple's....

These people rock my world. A lot. 

Met hundreds of people I wouldn't have met otherwise; been to Edel with awesome, awesome people; become a Lay Dominican; read the Outlander books (this would've made my life so sad, people....to not know Jamie and Claire!).....and about a thousand others....seen the resurgence of the Pirates into a good baseball team!....

VII. 

Organ donation doesn't just save one person. It saves families. It saves friends. It saves entire networks of people. I mean, not that I'm all that or anything, but I do have friends and family that would miss me (I hope!). I would've missed so much without these 11 extra years. 

Guys. Be an organ donor. Save lives. Give people joy and grace. 

Seven Quick Takes No. 115--Not to go all Boromir on you....

linking up with Kelly and the gang. 

I. 
There is logic in that title. Really. :) 

So last week I was watching Army Wives on Netflix (Yes, sometimes I watch soap-ish TV. DO NOT JUDGE.) There was a kid with CF who was brought into the ER with a collapsed lung.

Now, to treat a collapsed lung, an interventional radiologist (so no, not just anyone) has to insert a chest tube, in order to reinflate the lung. It requires cutting. It requires stitches. It requires boxes. It basically sucks. It's my second-least favorite thing to have done, medically. 

(What's first? A pH probe. Seriously. Don't ask. 

Oh, you asked?  OK. 

A pH probe involves sticking a tube up your nose, down your throat, and into your stomach. And the tube sticks to your face and dangles outside of your body because it's attached to a stupid meter. It sucks. A lot. And it hurts. A lot. Basically, it's a tool left over from the Inquisition.)

So anyway, while watching the show--the kid had no tube left in. It was basically, we stick in a tube! The lung reinflates! Let's go home tomorrow! 

Um, no. 

Hence, the below photo, which I created to express my displeasure. 

One does not simply not keep a chest tube in. Sorry. And to remove it also requires an interventional radiologist. Yeah. Stitches, remember.

II.

So, please make the above meme a thing. I think it's awesome and the Internet needs it! 

III.

I have a clinic appointment on Monday, so I'll report back with the results when I get them. Oh what joy, oh what rapture. :) The nice thing about clinic visits in the summer is that the rush hour traffic is significantly better. 

IV.

The recap from this week, in case you missed it: 

Summer scribbles: A taste of summer (My strawberry salad recipe) 

Postcard: Chicago

Catholic 101: Apostolic Succession

V.

Also, I got a picture with this guy:

You know, some random Canadian. ;-) 

The dress is from Shabby Apple. It looks a bit better on TV. I think. Since the photos are taken during one of the commercial breaks, you don't really have time to primp. 

VI. 

The show airs on July 18th! 

I will also be on Jen Fulwiler's Radio Show that day, to tease the episode. :) If you have Sirius, be sure to tune in! I'll have more info as we get closer.

VII. 

Another thing about that photo? The microphone pack is attached to my bra strap. Really. They have a guy who attaches all the microphones. He asks before he attaches it. And he's very professional about it. But that's where the microphone pack is. They remove it before they shoot the "let's all talk at the end of the show" thing, so you won't see it. :) 

Seven Quick Takes No. 113

I. 

First up--this week's post roundup: 

SITS girls Summer Scribbles No. 1

Catholic 101: Those "Screwball Apostles"

II. 

I'm going to Pittsburgh this weekend for my godson/cousin's high school graduation. He actually graduated last week, but the party is this weekend. I can't believe he's that old, first off. I was fifteen when he was born! He'll be going to Pitt to study computer science. He's a good kid, and I'm so lucky to be his godmother.  

III. 

Just a reminder: my Jeopardy! appearance is July 18th!!!

IV. 

(Yes, that merited the cool font. You know it did.)

I'm actually sort of nervous about people watching it. I can see the whole slew of tweets and Facebook postings of "YOU IDIOT! How did you not know THAT?" And honestly, there's at least one question I'm still beating myself up about. :-P 

I did manage to impress Alex T., though. I did. But that is a story for the day the show airs. :) 

V. 

I did manage to whip the sketchbook out this week, not once, but TWICE! Oh yeah! 

Lunchtime sketching--lamp and a wonky pitcher. :-P (I was trying to do single line contour on that guy, so....)

Plant at Dawes Arboretum. 

VI. 

California legalized assisted suicide this week. Why that's a bad idea. 

VII. 

And my hockey team is continuing to hate me--game 6 in San Jose.....

Seven Quick Takes No. 112

I. 
Previously on the blog, here (in case you missed any of it!): 

Sugarcoating Suicide: Me Before You
Ordinary Joy
Summer Reading

That first one has become particularly relevant since I found out that the state of California will legalize assisted suicide next week. 

II. 

In My Summer Reading post, I talked about Eligible. Well, I finished it yesterday, and it was terrible. Terrible isn't really a strong enough word for how bad it was, acutally. If you are at all tempted to read it, please, for the Love of All That is Holy, go pick up the real Pride and Prejudice, or watch the Only Version That Exists In My World. 

III. 

Also in the world of Jane, I'm re-reading Persuasion. If you haven't read that one, go for it, please. It gets overlooked sometimes!

IV. 

If you're a Facebook friend of mine, you're probably wondering why, around 8:00 every other night, my feed becomes incomprehensible with sports jargon. It's because the Penguins are in the Stanley Cup Finals, and I adore hockey.  

My first NHL game was against the Hartford Whalers (Wow, I just dated myself) at the old Igloo--the Civic Arena-- in Pittsburgh. I think this was in 1990. But anyway, I have been a lifelong fan since then. Poor Mary, when we were in LA, had to put up with my attention totally deviating from her if hockey came on the TV when we were eating. I'm like a dog going "SQUIRREL!" 

So, until the series is over (and hopefully the Pens will sweep and it'll be over next week, and we'll have our Fourth Stanley Cup victory), there might be some weird Facebook posting. :) 

V. 

If you're wondering why I root for Pittsburgh teams when I live in Columbus--it's because my parents are both from Pittsburgh. In fact, they were born three days apart (although in different hospitals), and Dad is a Pitt and Carnegie Mellon graduate. Mom used to work at Pittsburgh Children's before she married my dad. So all of us kids were brought us as Steelers, Pirates, and Penguins fans, and it stuck. Even though my brother went to OSU, we're not very strong OSU fans. 

And I hate calling it The Ohio State University. Some of my friends do it just to spite me. :-P

VI. 

It go so hot, so fast here. It's like we didn't really have spring at all. It was cold, and then "boiling lava hot" (as Jim Gaffigan says in his Hot Pockets sketch). Oh well. At least the pool's open and my A/C works!!!! 

VII. 

Finally--do any of you use fountain pens? I just started and I have to say, I love them. I feel very writerly and Jane-ish (although I know Jane didn't use them). Ink spots on my fingers? Fun! 

Sugarcoating Suicide: Me Before You (Or: Why you should not read this book or see this movie)

I get really, really tired of defending my existence.

If it isn't people telling me that my transplant was immoral, it's people who think that assisted suicide for disabled people is a good idea, and a sign of love. 

Yes. Because, you know, nothing says I love you like KILLING YOU. 

Let's look at the cognitive dissonance, here: When someone--say, Robin Williams--commits suicide, social media is flooded with messages like, "suicide isn't the answer", "please get help-- don't be afraid of getting it", "I wish people knew that they could talk to me if they're ever feeling like this." Etcetera. You all know how this goes. People are sad, as they should be. People continually say that suicide is NOT a good option. And it's not. 

But: when it's a disabled person who kills himself, oh, well, that's love. 

And that's exactly what happens in the new movie Me Before You, based on the novel of the same name by JoJo Moyes. In it, a woman falls in love with a quadriplegic man she's taking care of--but, oh, he wants to kill himself. Because, you know, life in a wheelchair isn't worth living. And if she REALLY loved him, she'd go with him to Switzerland and be there when he kills himself. Because that's love: supporting you in all your bad choices! 

No. You know what love is? Love is what Mary Lenaburg and her family did for her daughter, Courtney. Love is what Kelly Mantoan and countless other parents do every day for their kids who need their help. Love is my mom washing my hair when I'm nineteen years old and her back hurts, or my dad staying up during countless ER runs with me, or my siblings learning how to reconstitute and push IV drugs. THAT is love. 

My life isn't perfect. Show me someone who says his life is perfect, and I'll say that this person is a liar. Did it suck, being twenty-three years old and not being able to brush my teeth without sitting down after? Does it suck now, when I have to ask people to repeat things because I don't always understand them, or when my CI malfunctions? Yeah. But I would never, ever say that that was worth being dead. Obviously, I like my life just fine, since I've been to the edge of death and come back from it five times. I must think that something is worth living for. 

When we start sugarcoating assisted suicide--like in The Sea Inside, Million Dollar Baby, and The English Patient--we are trying to make it morally acceptable. We're trying to tell people that suffering is bad and we should avoid it at all costs, even by killing people who are suffering. Guys. That's not love. That's not living boldly, as the movie's tagline execrably proclaims. 

Living boldly is living the way my friend Sage does, while she waits for a lung transplant.  It's what Andi's kids do every day, whether they're running crazily at a T-ball game or singing in show choir. Living boldly is embracing life in all its highs and lows and living anyway.  

I've had people tell me that they would've aborted me, if they'd been my mom. 

To my face, people. 

* * * 

In The Giver, a dystopian novel by Lois Lowry, Jonah, the main character, discovers that what everyone calls "release" is actually euthanasia. In his community, old people are killed, people who break the rules three times are killed, even one of a set of twins is killed. Babies that don't sleep through the night when they're a year old are killed. Why? Because they are inconvenient. Because they make life difficult for the community. Jonah can't live in a system like that, and runs away with Gabriel, a baby that is slated for "release." He risks his own life to save the baby's--because if you try to escape from the community and are caught, you are "released." 

The community's highest value is ease of life. No one experiences pain. No one, actually, experiences any emotions. People take a pill every day so that they don't have emotions. Parents don't have children--they are "given" children, who are born via artificial insemination. When Jonas asks his parents if they love him, they laugh at him and say it's a meaningless word. And thus, the community medicates away their humanity--and kills what is inconvenient. 

Yeah, it's a book--but are we that far off from that? Where do we stop? 

The abortion rate for Down Syndrome kids in the U.S. is 67% In Europe, it's 92%. We are killing babies because they are imperfect. Because they are inconvenient.  This Atlantic headline pretty much says it all--why on EARTH would you keep an imperfect baby? 

People sue for "wrongful birth"--saying that they wish their babies had never been born. Not all cases of CF are detectable in utero, because there are thousands of possible mutations. So if a kid with CF is born, and his parents don't like it, they sue. They can pretty it up all they want and say they need the money for the kid's care--but it's not about money. It's about having a kid who isn't perfect, and someone needs to pay for that. Someone made "a mistake."

Jesus had something to say about this: 

You know who made the "mistake", here? It was God. And no, it's not a mistake. God did all this for a purpose, and for a reason. My crazy genetic code exists to bring Glory to God. That's why I'm here.  

Suicide is not an answer for anyone, at any time. It's not romantic and it's not brave. In the case of assisted suicide, it's reprehensible. 

Life has value beyond its utility. We are not cogs in a machine. We are human beings created in the image and likeness of God. And to purposefully commit suicide is not brave. It's cowardly. It flies in the face of bravery. 

I'm not a hero. I'm not a saint. I screw up. But the answer to challenges isn't to give up. The answer is to live the best you can, in the circumstances you are in. Love is helping people find a way to live--not by helping them die. 

Back from the West Coast

The Pacific Ocean at Santa Monica Beach

So, I'm back--and with a computer that has a period key that doesn't work!

So no, I'm not experimenting with new fun forms of punctuation--I'm going to get it fixed soon--but I wanted to pop in here and say that I'm back and I can't wait to share my adventures and California thoughts with all of you!

Obviously, I can't say what happened during my Jeopardy adventure, but I can tell you that the episode will air July 18 (That's a Monday)--so write it down now! :) 

As I've done in previous travelogues, I'll take you through each day, and I'll have a final post with everything we did and my recommendations, if you're traveling to the LA/SoCal area and want to know what I thought was a good bet for food/fun/etc

One thing that was definitely a good bet, though? 

Oh, I was dazzled, Olaf--totally!

This person is taking a trip to California in January to be on TV!

Answer: WHO IS ME!!!!!!!!!

Yes, guys, I am SO excited to tell you that after my Boston audition, I am going to be a real live Jeopardy contestant!!!

I got the call last night. After I got out of Mass, I saw I had messages on my phone, and one of them was labeled "Culver City." I knew then what it was about. (Jeopardy! is filmed in Culver City, California.) 

So I flew over to my parents so that Dad could help me with phone translation, and, after I told the lady on the phone that no, I'm not running for political office; no, I haven't committed a felony in the last two months (since they last asked me that), and no, I haven't done anything else nefarious--I got the news , officially!

All I know right now is that the taping is January 26/27. California in January sounds nice. I will, of course, share more news as I get it! But right now I'm just basically TOTALLY EXCITED. I've also never been to California so this is a "nice little holiday treat!" (as they say on The Family Man.) 

Deciding who lives and who dies

First, we have some OP Power, from Fr. Thomas Petri, who is the Academic Dean of the Dominican House of Studies in D.C. 

A sampling: 

Do we lose something, as a people, when it not only becomes legal but also expected that those with terminal illness should “choose” to die? If the European experience tells us anything, it is that those expectations willinevitably come. As clinicians morally coerce patients to end their lives (or impose that choice themselves) they will say that such is the caring thing to do, to free the friends and family who would otherwise be bound by responsibility. Yet no one is an island. It’s okay to be dependent. And though it’s difficult, we each know we owe constancy to those who need us the most.

This is one of my hot topics, obviously. In some countries, I'd have been aborted, using today's technology. I am genetically imperfect in a variety of ways. I have CF. I have thalessimia minor--and in Cyprus, babies with thalessimia are aborted, to the extent that there aren't new babies born with it. * 

I've been dependent on other people for most of my life, and I will continue to be so. I can't use a phone, so my parents have to make any necessary phone calls for me. My parents pay for my medications that keep me alive, because my salary is so low that there's no way I could pay for all my health care and live independently. My mom accesses my port every month. My life is totally dependent on the drugs I take. Without them, I'm not here. Heck, I'm only alive because someone decided to donate her organs. Like Blanche Dubois, I exist on the "kindness of strangers." 

Is it great, all the time? Well, no. I'd really like to be able to use a phone, but I like being alive more, so I don't begrudge--too often--the drugs that made it necessary for me to have the bionic ear. 

By my count, I've been close to death about five times. I've had some pretty unpleasant hospital experiences. (pH probe, chest tubes--I'm looking at you!). But never have I wished, in those moments, that I wasn't alive for them. 

"Princess, life has it all over death!", The Engineer tells Kim in Miss Saigon. And that's true. Life is the greatest gift we have. It's not perfect. No one's life is perfect. There will be pain. There will be suffering. It's guaranteed. We cannot prevent it. We cannot remove it. 

A fulfilling life isn't about what you can do. Life is precious because of what it is. We are created in the image and likeness of God. The angels envy us. No matter what we can or cannot do, physically or mentally, the most vulnerable among us need protected. Not snuffed out. 

______________________________

* for the Cyrus stat, from Wikipedia: A screening policy exists in Cyprus to reduce the incidence of thalassemia, which, since the program's implementation in the 1970s (which also includes prenatal screening and abortion), has reduced the number of children born with the hereditary blood disease from one of every 158 births to almost zero.[