It’s been awhile, sorry about that. But as I’ve told a few people — it’s hard to type “shrug.” There just hasn’t been anything to report for the last 35 days.
(and after making that joke for a couple of days, I remembered ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ is a thing. Oops.)
But I digress. After the last post we waited for a few days and then got the papers filled out, signed and immunizations re-immunized (the list on the official documentation differed from my notes, and I foolishly ignored that). We sent those records off and waited…and waited…and then we got a call asking where they were and then we waited another couple of days and then got a call asking why we hadn’t gotten all the immunizations they’d asked for (and an apology when I pointed out the goof, although I should’ve called and verified the list). So we got the shot and got a vial of blood drawn and in the mail, and then a week and change later, we got the call saying he was on the list. (The horrible sentence structure there isn’t really a tribute to Faulkner, nor is it bad writing trying to disguise itself as one. It’s more a way to show how aimless the month felt).
While just treading water, waiting for the first shoe to drop (so we can start waiting for the other one), things have been happening on related fronts. We’ve had some fruitful and helpful conversations with great people at our insurance company and our pharmacy and have seen our pediatrician more than we have in years — things like that. Also, we’ve had one person try to arrange a paired exchange for us — had to put a stop to that, with a good measure of regret — but there are some jobs we need to leave to the professionals. We had another family try to arrange a donation of a recently deceased person — again, we had to leave that to the professionals (although we strongly encouraged them to just try to donate to anyone). Both of these offers of help left us full of gratitude (the latter also left us speechless and in awe).
Similarly overwhelming has been the response to a GoFundMe campaign Machen’s mom started to help us pay for the housing expenses during our post-surgery stay. Friends, family, our church family, another church, and strangers have contributed more than we could’ve hoped for. Still, feel free to click the link, share the link, etc. The lack of housing help from our insurance was a heckuva blow (our case manager sounded like it bothered her more than me when she broke the news, “This is usually the part of the call I like because I can tell you all the wonderful things we’ll do . . .”) — the fact that this is a specific contract exemption felt like it’s a personal smack from the employer who covers us. I know it’s not, and really have nothing else to complain about on the insurance front — but at the time the news was delivered, it felt like it.
It’s now down to waiting for That Call. Which, by the way, means that if I (or my wife or his siblings) get a call that we interrupt a conversation with you over — it may not mean that we’re being rude, it’s just that That Call is something we’ve been waiting over a decade for. Odds are that we are being rude — but one of these times, we won’t be.
Again, seeing this was a privilege I don’t deserve. Helping him to this stage has been a blessing (though, honestly, not one I always remember to see as such). He took a big step in improving his baptism this morning, but he has many others before him, Lord willing. Hopefully, his mother and I can continue to help him in this lifelong effort, but our hope and trust is that he who began a good work in Machen will bring it to completion at the day of Jesus Christ.
Machen and his sister went camping and fishing with my parents this last weekend–because of the rain, “camping” is loosely defined as sleeping in sleeping bags on the living room floor. Which explains all the grass underneath Machen’s feet in this picture.
Had our regular checkup with the kidney doc today. Everything was in the good to excellent range on the blood test front. Kidney function was at 35-40%, but the doc’s not worried–hydration level alone is worth a few percentage points. The doc took a minute or two with the other kids to drill them on anatomy, and teach ’em a little bit (that was fun). And I learned the phrase “the third kidney.” Educational for all involved. 
Visit to the nephrologist was a short one, and on the whole positive. Doc was satisfied with his grown–1.5 inches since July and 2 pounds (2 pounds?!?!)–actually, he called that “good.” Most of the things we look for in his blood were good. The big one, sadly, went up a bit; his creatinine was at 1.2 giving him a 44% kidney function (+/- 4%), so he’s “slipping a little” on that front. We’re still more than 20% from the point where we start shopping around for his next kidney.
The Backup Kidney 