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Moments


96 has been a good year.  After two years of night classes, I finally finished my Master's of Human Relations degree with the University of Oklahoma.  Work has been positive and productive, filled with exciting new challenges and opportunities.  Nimfa and I have shared in hobbies of writing, magic and clowning, helping each blossom, and she's been active in her own hobby as a seamstress. 

While all the diversity in our lives could have easily caused Nimfa and I to grow apart, instead, we have grown closer together.  Yes, 1996 has been a good year.

 


It's July.  The good life threatens to crash.  A routine appointment for Nimfa reveals skyrocketing blood pressure and follow-on tests ultimately reveal possible kidney problems. 

A variety of high blood pressure medicine is tried, and finally a mixture is found that doesn't have unlivable side effects and also satisfactorily lowers the blood pressure.  An appointment is scheduled with a specialist in Hawaii.




Squeaky the clown.  At work, I'm serious and graying, but sometimes I masquerade as a clown or a magician.  With an appropriately silly costume Nimfa made for me, I did a couple of clown magic shows at a child care center and suddenly I'm rather busy.  In just a couple of months, I have about 20 shows - some close-up restaurant magic, some clown magic, some ballooning.

I enjoy doing shows for children the most.  I love the smiles.  I love the laughs.  I love the love.

One show has me clowning for about two hours as children and their parents walk in to get their seats for the real show - children's bingo.  Close to the end of the two hours, a line forms around us and I'm twisting balloons as quick as Nimfa can pump them up. 

We left with the bingo hall filled with over a hundred kids with colorful flying mouse hats, present hats, rabbit ears, headphones, giraffes, bears on a stick, weenie dogs on a leash, and more all made out of those silly long balloons. 

Smiles.  Laughs.  Love.




  It's September.  A specialist is seen in Hawaii.  The initial diagnosis is IgA Nephropathy or Glomerulnephritis - a kidney disease which has taken 70 percent of her kidney function away, never to return.  Untreated, dialysis is four years from now.  Treatment can delay it (who knows, maybe as long as 40 years), but first a biopsy to verify it's IgAN.

"Isn't it possible you've simply made a mistake here?" I asked the doctor.
She turned and looked at me with compassion, almost as if she's heard the question many times before and understood all the emotion behind it.  "I wish it were a mistake," she said, "but no, it isn't."




When we arrived in Hawaii, Nimfa dragged me out to see all the sites.  Living overseas in Okinawa for two years we had been a little isolated, so seeing the sites was a must. 

First Sears, then J.C. Penney, then Wal-Mart, Payless shoes; let's try Liberty House; I heard there's a mall in Pearl Ridge; Borders is the biggest book store we've ever seen and it has music too; look at all these restaurants.

Waikiki was OK too, though a little crowded.  The Magic of Polynesia was the best magical illusion show we've seen in person; John Hirakawa rivals the magic of David Copperfield and they're obviously having a wonderful time on that stage. 

A submarine took us more than a hundred feet below the surface and we ultimately settled on the bottom of the great Pacific Ocean watching schools of fish swim by our portholes.




Life is changing, but we still have moments.  I'm glad I've realized that the joy to life is not in the days, weeks, months, or even years.  The joy to life is in the moments.  It's in the moments we share; it's in the moments we remember.

To the people that I may have mislead with my incomplete answers, please forgive me, though Nimfa truly is doing OK now.  I wasn't sure what to say or how to say it.  I first thought that this was drastic news and the world was crashing down.  Instead, I've learned it's just an inconvenience. 

Yes, adversity may be ahead, but some of our greatest growth comes from adversity and there isn't a soul alive who hasn't faced some. 

Of course, we can't control what happens to us, we can only control how we deal with what happens to us.  My hope is that we can face this without letting it control us, without letting it take away our precious moments.

                      -- Darril R. Gibson

A little about IgAN


Our Perspective on IgAN


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