40 Days of Thankfulness: Day Fourteen

Today, and every day, I am thankful for coffee.  Without it, I would have a daily headache and I’d have even less energy than I have now.

I first started drinking coffee when I had my first job as a waitress at a Hayes-Bickford in Boston, MA.  This was a summer job.  A bunch of my college friends had gotten an apartment near Fenway Park in Boston and most of us were waitresses in various places.  Hayes-Bickford was marginally better than a dive.

I was fortunate that I was the youngest waitress at that Hayes-Bickford, so I got the best tips. This was a l-o-n-g time ago – I’d get out of work sometime after midnight, take the Boston subway alone to our apartment, with an apron full of my tips, mostly in jangly change.  That could never happen any more!  Even without the money, I still wouldn’t wander around the Boston Common area of Boston alone after midnight.

The food at HB wasn’t so great.  Sometimes, a patron would order some type of meat and the chef would say we were out of it, to put gravy on whatever-we-had and tell the diner that it was what he had ordered.  We were usually out of a lot of things.

But the coffee was good and I learned to drink it, lots of it, and black, something I still do today.  If I could do the IV thing, I would!

40 Days of Thankfulness: Day Twelve

Today, I am thankful for Saturdays.  It’ the one day of the week I don’t have to be anywhere, do anything.  I can do webwork, if I want, but I don’t have any deadlines.

I never have doctor appointments on Saturdays, no medical testing.

No piano students.  I don’t even talk to prospective students on Saturdays.

It’s a day for maybe brunch, a trip to the farm, maybe a little TV, maybe (most assuredly!)  a nap.

Saturdays are family days, even though our family is smaller than it was.

Saturdays are always full of promise.

Off to see what today’s promise is…

40 Days of Thankfulness: Day Eleven

Today, I am thankful for Lisa.  Her photography studio ( http://www.dickensstudio.com/ ) held a Girls Night Out fundraiser which benefitted Cushing’s Help.

Last night’s raffle raised $600.00 and that will go a long way to keeping the message boards up and running for another year.

You, too, can be thankful for Lisa here.  🙂

40 Days of Thankfulness: Day Ten

Today I am most thankful for naps!

40 Days of Thankfulness: Day Nine

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I am so thankful for all my doctors but today I am thankful for Dr. Amir Al-Juburi who saved my life by removing my kidney cancer (renal cell carcinoma).

In 2006 I picked up my husband for a biopsy and took him to an outpatient surgical center. While I was there waiting for the biopsy to be completed, I started noticing blood in my urine and major abdominal cramps. I left messages for several of my doctors on what I should do. I finally decided to see my PCP after I got my husband home.

When Tom was done with his testing, his doctor took one look at me and asked if I wanted an ambulance. I said no, that I thought I could make it to the emergency room ok – Tom couldn’t drive because of the anaesthetic they had given him. I barely made it to the ER and left the car with Tom to park. Tom’s doctor followed us to the ER and became my new doctor.

When I was diagnosed in the ER with kidney cancer, Tom’s doctor said that he could do the surgery but that he would recommend someone even more experienced, Dr. Amir Al-Juburi.

Dr. Amir Al-Juburi has been so kind to me, almost like a kindly grandfather might be, and he got rid of all 10 pounds of my kidney and cancer.

I owe him, the original doctor, and my Cushing’s doctors (who will be featured later!), my life.

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