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1. miws
   Member Profile

   

   Hey, everyone!

   As many of you already know, Jan has been a bit like a ping-pong ball this past month or so, going between hospitalizations at Swedish Cherry Hill, and rehab (attempts) at Park West.

   Well, those in control of the ping pong paddle at Cherry Hill, have agreed to redirect their aim, toward the direction of Mount Saint Vincent, this time. (Her returns to Cherry Hill have had nothing to do with her care at Park West, it's just been various health issues cropping up. Although, The Mount will likely be a better fit).

   Anyhoo, this extra time away from home, also means extra time off work, which Jan has attempted to continue whenever possible, over these last months of illnesses.

   Of course, this translates to no income, as Jan is self-employed. I'm sure that when she went in for the heart surgery a month plus ago, she was expecting to have been physically rehabbed enough, to return to her career as a Massage Therapist, at least on a limited basis.

   The point of this diatribe, is to remind folks of Jan's Go Fund Me site, which is accessible via the link below:

   http://www.gofundme.com/14rlws

   Thanks!

   Mike

   Posted 6 months ago #         

2. JoB
   Member Profile

   I would like to add that the generosity of donors at the gofundme site has been amazing..

   but the complications that have kept Jan bouncing through the health care system have also increased her expenses and lengthened the amount of time she will be unable to work...

   and her new restrictive diet has just made it that much more expensive to have meals delivered to her when she does finally get home...

   She badly needs as much time as we can give her to recover so that she can get healthy before she gets her kidney transplant so she can get off the complication merry-go-round that has been exacerbated by her kidney disease.

   She won't be able to do that unless she has enough funding to stop worrying about how soon she can push herself back to work.

   It's not that Jan doesn't want to work.. it's that she can't if she is going to recover enough to survive the next round of surgery that is necessary to keep her around.

   please help us keep Jan around if you can...

   thanks in advance for anything you can do

   someone suggested a meal calendar for Jan after she gets home...
   one of us will be asking for help setting that up just as soon as we figure out the priorities on her three tier diet... renal failure, diabetes and heart disease.

   are there any dieticians out there who would like to volunteer to help us put a sample meal plan together so we have something viable to post with the meal calendar?

   you can reach me at joanne at brayden dot org and i can connect you with whoever ends up taking responsibility for that one...

   thanks again. the generosity of this community never fails to amaze me

   Posted 6 months ago #         

3. JanS
   Member Profile

   

   JoB and Mike...thank you for posting this. And, rest assured...any donations to the fund or to food are very much appreciated. :)

   Posted 6 months ago #         

4. miws
   Member Profile

   

   I would like to add that the generosity of donors at the gofundme site has been amazing..

   Yeah, a lot of us have come to kinda like Jan.

   Dunno why...... ;-)

   Mike

   Posted 6 months ago #         

5. miws
   Member Profile

   

   .

   Posted 6 months ago #         

6. singularname
   Member Profile

   Hope to see the diet posted. I love to cook "big" on weekends (i.e., plenty to freeze) and am decent at keeping Southern and Italian dishes ridiculously good with seemingly impossible ingredient restrictions. Although Jan will have to decide if she wants to be an experimentee. :->

   Posted 6 months ago #         

7. JoB
   Member Profile

   singlularname...

   we are working on that.

   A local dietician has contacted me and we are scheduling an appt for her with Jan.

   another local volunteer has volunteered to do the meal calendar work.

   I am still looking for someone who can build the page with the diet and recipes that will link to the meal calendar.

   In the meantime.. Jan needs to get well enough to go home so we can all cook for her.

   she is in room 5335 at the Mount.

   Posted 6 months ago #         

8. JanS
   Member Profile

   

   actually, that's rm. 535....my trigger finger was itchy when I wrote JoB - lol

   Posted 6 months ago #         

9. miws
   Member Profile

   

   she is in room 5335 at the Mount.

   I was gonna ask; "...when did they add 45 stories to the building?"

   Imagine that view though! ;-)

   Mike

   Posted 6 months ago #         

10. JoB
    Member Profile

    for those who want to visit..
    535 is the first door to the left in the South wing on 5
    Jan is in the front bed.... and since she generally sits on the side of the bed looking out towards the doorway to use her computer.. you are likely to see her smiling face before you figure out you have found the right room.

    she is pretty busy with physical and occupational therapy in the mornings.. and goes to dialysis some time after two on tuesday, thursday and saturday...

    but told me this morning she would love early afternoon or early evening company.

    it gets really really boring being hospitalized for so long.

    Posted 6 months ago #         

11. miws
    Member Profile

    

    Bump

    Posted 6 months ago #         

12. JanS
    Member Profile

    

    yes, Rm 535 South. Thanks, JoB, for posting that. While my room is small, esp. with a roommate, there is a nice common area where we can sit and visit...

    boring does not describe my life adequately at the moment - lol....

    Posted 6 months ago #         

13. miws
    Member Profile

    

    

    Posted 6 months ago #         

14. JanS
    Member Profile

    

    lol...another dumbass picture :D

    Posted 6 months ago #         

15. miws
    Member Profile

    

    :-)

    Posted 6 months ago #         

16. miws
    Member Profile

    

    .

    Posted 6 months ago #         

17. miws
    Member Profile

    

    Well, I had a nice visit with Jan yesterday, and she seemed to be behaving herself, and didn't appear to be harassing the staff. ;-)

    So, I think this deserves another bump!

    Mike

    Posted 6 months ago #         

18. JoB
    Member Profile

    Jan got the wouud vac off her foot today.

    Even if the probable election of Elizabeth Warren and the whopping returns for Bernie weren't making me grin like a Cheshire cat tonight..
    i would still be grinning ear to ear from Jan's news :)))

    don't panic if you see her in a wheelchair.

    things didn't slide backwards..
    the surgeon just wants to keep her off it for a while...

    No wheelies Jan

    Posted 6 months ago #         

19. miws
    Member Profile

    

    Woot!

    Posted 6 months ago #         

20. miws
    Member Profile

    

    

    

    Posted 6 months ago #         

21. JanS
    Member Profile

    

    :)

    Posted 6 months ago #         

22. miws
    Member Profile

    

    .

    Posted 6 months ago #         

23. JoB
    Member Profile

    Jan's business phone message now says that she is accepting massage appointments for November...

    as hopeful as this sounds..
    she will have to take it very easy for longer than she wants to admit so although she hopes to be earning by then... she won't be earning much.

    In spite of the incredible generosity of so many, this has been a much longer haul that anyone expected and Jan's resources are limited.

    Increasing the balance in Jan's go fund me account will allow her to recover without worrying so much that she will be unable to meet her expenses ...

    it's really important that she finds the balance between pushing herself just hard enough to continually improve and not so hard that she lands back in the hospital with more complications.

    any donations you can make to this fund are gratefully appreciated...

    as are the many offers of household assistance when she is able to return home...

    Posted 6 months ago #         

24. Sue
    Member Profile

    

    And for those who need it again, here's the link to the fund JoB mentioned above:

    http://www.gofundme.com/14rlws

    Posted 6 months ago #         

25. miws
    Member Profile

    

    .

    Posted 6 months ago #         

26. JanS
    Member Profile

    

    actually,my message says I am not taking clients until after November 30. Yeah, I'm in a big Catch 22 at the moment regarding rehab. I need to be walking, and working on strength and endurance, but the skin graft on my foot is not entirely healed ( but doing well so far), and it prevents me from walking more than a few feet at any given time. I'm in a wheelchair most of the time when I need to get somewhere. It's kind of a fun ride, but prevents me from doing what I do for a living :-(

    Posted 6 months ago #         

27. miws
    Member Profile

    

    bump

    Posted 6 months ago #         

28. miws
    Member Profile

    

    .

    Posted 6 months ago #         

29. JoB
    Member Profile

    as friends of jan we are in a catch 22 too ;->
    pushing her hard enough to get on her feet as much as she can without slowing down healing on her foot.

    seriously.. the current rules create a real catch 22 for jan. She is no longer eligible for nursing home care once her foot heals enough to no longer require daily dressing changes...

    but she still lives up a flight of stairs and no matter how good we are at bring what she needs in.. she still has to negotiate those stairs at least 3 times a week for dialysis whether she gets strength back in her legs or not.

    I have looked for solutions but unless a couple of real hunks out there volunteer to carry her up and down those stairs for dialysis three times a week for a week or two ...

    we need to mobilize any and all resources to getting jan as fit as we can before she has to leave the nursing home.

    anyone willing to offer a very gentle calf or shoulder massage?

    or show up to chat her way through a round of wheelchair/bed exercises..

    or to offer an arm for a jaunt to the hall and back

    or ????

    We are a very creative community...
    give us a problem.. we find solutions

    jan is either going to hate me or love me for letting this genie out of the box ;-)

    either way, if she makes progress, it's worth it.

    Posted 6 months ago #         

30. Rags
    Member Profile

    Is home dialysis an option?

    Posted 6 months ago #         

31. JoB
    Member Profile

    Rags..
    jan was working towards home dialysis when pneumonia followed by the need for heart surgery followed by the land of complications interrupted the process.
    is it an option eventually? maybe. right now she needs the continual bloodwork monitoring and IV medications and ability to drain excess fluid that come with the dialysis she gets at the kidney center.

    Posted 6 months ago #         

32. Rags
    Member Profile

    Jo...I'm sure you've pursued every option, but I just feel like there should be a Kidney Foundation somewhere that could help in situations like this. There are many resources for cancer patients to get help, e.g., the American Cancer Society, Susan G. Komen, et. so I'm hoping there's a kidney support organization out there that could help Jan. What about the West Seattle Helpline or King County United Way? I'm not familiar with the services they provide but might be worth checking out. Another suggestion is to send requests to the local churches and health clubs in West Seattle and ask them to seek volunteers from their congregations/memberships.

    Posted 6 months ago #         

33. Rags
    Member Profile

    ps. I will keep pursuing too!

    Posted 6 months ago #         

34. JanS
    Member Profile

    

    Rags, Jan here. Right now I have a potential live donor - a niece in Colorado. She is not a perfect match, since I have mild antibodies against her. The transplant clinic advised that they could do plasmapharesis and IVIg therapy to make the match better. I am also still pursuing a better match.May have another local person who wants to be tested. I am on hold at the transplant clinic as we speak, since I'm still recovering from the heart surgery (9/26). If I had had no complications, I had expected to take 1-2 months off. As it stands, I haven't been home in over 7 weeks now. I am in rehab, waiting for a skin graft on my foot to heal, cannot walk, let alone work, and mostly use a wheelchair. I probably won't work again before the end of the year.I'm a massage therapist..gotta stand and move to do that. Then...I'll hopefully be able to plan a kidney transplant. And will have to take 2-3 months off after that - aagain, with no income. ( Also had pneumonia and hemolytic anemia in July - 2 weeks at Swedish - lol)

    Yeah, you could say it's not my year....but I keep plugging along. I'm trying to hold on to my apt., eetc, as best as I can. . It took a lot of throwing pride out the window to start this funding thing...but...sometimes you have to do what you have to do, and this community has been generously wonderful. I wrote to Helpline, never heard back from them. I have researched other kidney organizations, and haven't found anything so far as far as helping with expenses. So, I do what I have to do. So far, so good :)

    If you find anything in your searches, let me know...my email is on my website...click on my name ...thanks :)

    Posted 6 months ago #         

35. miws
    Member Profile

    

    Bump!

    Posted 6 months ago #         

36. JanS
    Member Profile

    

    Thanks, Mike :)

    Posted 6 months ago #         

37. miws
    Member Profile

    

    :-)

    Posted 5 months ago #         

38. miws
    Member Profile

    

    Welcome home bump!

    Posted 5 months ago #         

39. JanS
    Member Profile

    

    :)

    Posted 5 months ago #         

40. miws
    Member Profile

    

    Birthday Bump! :-)

    http://www.gofundme.com/14rlws

    Posted 2 months ago #         

41. JoB
    Member Profile

    This is a good time to show Jan a little love..

    today.. on her birthday.. she sees her first client since taking a little time off to have surgery.. several months ago.

    Her go fund me account is pretty much tapped out again and her social security barely covers her rent.

    she could use a little help while she tries to get healthy enough to pop back onto the transplant list.

    it's been a rough year for Jan..

    I am tickled to be able to wish her a happy birthday. It was touch and go there for a while.

    Posted 2 months ago #         

42. miws
    Member Profile

    

    And a Bump! :-)

    Posted 2 months ago #         

43. gmabetty
    Member Profile

    Maybe one day soon I can drop by to see Jan and re-introduce myself and interrupt her "exciting" day. I met her breifly once long time ago at Nickelsville Pancake Breakfast.

    As I've said before--- There are so many kind caring people on this blog. I see some of them above.

    Posted 2 months ago #         

44. miws
    Member Profile

    

    .

    Posted 2 months ago #         

45. miws
    Member Profile

    

    :-)

    Posted 2 months ago #         

46. JanS
    Member Profile

    

    an update..have healed from the heart surgery, have healed from the complications...energy is much better, am working part time very slowly (hey, have to start somewhere). I will be on hold at the transplant clinic until the end of April or so, and then, hopefully, things will start moving forward as far as transplant is concerned. If/When that happens, I will have to take another 3 months off. Lots of non-vacation time off in my life...sigh..oh, for a warm beach and a tropical drink - with umbrella in it :)

    Posted 2 months ago #         

47. miws
    Member Profile

    

    

    Posted 2 months ago #         

48. miws
    Member Profile

    

    .

    Posted 2 months ago #         

49. JoB
    Member Profile

    can she has cabana boy too?

    Posted 2 months ago #         

50. miws
    Member Profile

    

    can she has cabana boy too?

    The Good News: Yes, yes she can haz.

    The Bad News: It's this dude.......

    

    (Photo by DBP)

    Mike

    Posted 2 months ago #         

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