Monthly Archives: September 2011

Walk for PKD

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The Nebraska Walk for PKDis tomorrow!

There’s still time to make a donation if you can spare it. And if you’re local, come out and walk with us!! It’s going to be a great day so why not spend part of it helping fund the cure for Polycystic Kidney Disease?!!

To check out my personal PKD site or to donate, please go to www.pkdcure.org/valzane

I was diagnosed with Polycystic Kidney Disease in November, 2009 – a few short months after giving birth to my daughter, Lyla. That’s when I learned that my mother also has PKD and my  grandmother had it, as well. There is a 50% chance that my daughter may  someday discover that she too has the disease. Before that happens, we need to find  a cure!!!!

Polycystic Kidney Disease is one of the most common life-threatening genetic  diseases, affecting more people than Down Syndrome, Cystic Fibrosis, Muscular  Dystrophy and Sickle Cell Anemia – combined. Currently there is no treatment and  no cure… But there is hope!!
The PKD Foundation is a wonderful organization here to ensure that  someday, no one suffers the full effects of PKD. Wouldn’t that be great?

The PKD Foundation aggressively  seeks to convert:
– Ignorance into knowledge through high quality patient  education materials
– Despair into hope through communication, support  groups and research advances
– Isolation into community by involvement in  more than 70 PKD Foundation chapters and by lobbying congress
– Ideas  into reality through the research the Foundation funds and through clinical drug  trials
– Basic science into therapies through grants and  the Foundation’s work with the FDA
– Small dollars into large dollars by  leveraging grants into expanded PKD National Institute of Health (NIH) research  through passionate advocacy
They are doing the hard part but it is our support that  makes it possible.

If you can spare it, please give.

It’s www.pkdcure.org/valzane (in case you missed it the first time).

If money’s tight (and, boy, do I know that feeling!), please find a way to support in another way. I know it doesn’t always feel like it but money is not required to make a difference in this world. There are endless ways to help out.

Be creative! Donate time, say a prayer, join a local charity, offer a helping hand. Find your cause and do something to make a difference. Let’s save the world together. I bet if we work together, we can do it.

If you are able and willing to support the Walk for PKD, thank you. Your support means the world to me and my family.

xoxo

Today

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Today is a significant day in our nation’s history…

But let me begin by telling you that it’s also my mom’s birthday.

Since she is the most amazing woman I know, and that’s saying a lot since I know a lot of pretty amazing women, I’d like to take a moment to honor her.

My mom is the one who taught me how to love by loving me every second of my life. She has given me her undivided, unconditional support every step of the way. She has held my hand through all of life’s challenges. She believes in me and my dreams. She gives me advice when I need it yet never says “I told you so” when I prove time and time again how stubborn I can be. She has been my #1 fan since the day I was born. I couldn’t ask for a better mom or friend.

Ten years ago today, I woke up thinking that the day would be significant simply because it was my mom’s birthday. I hoped I wouldn’t forget to call her.

I was 25-yrs-old, living in the NYC area and working at the National Basketball Association. I was on my way to work when the first plane hit the World Trade Center. I saw the smoke from my car. The DJ on the radio said a small plane had crashed. His tone made it sound like no big deal. It seemed more like a nuisance than anything else. Of course he turned out to be wrong.

As I pulled into the NBA’s parking lot, my then-boyfriend called me from the subway platform beneath the World Trade Center. He switched trains there on his way to work nearby. He said there was chaos there, alarms going off and he was stuck underground in a mob of people. He wanted to know if I’d heard anything and if I could tell him what happened. I told him what I thought I knew – that there was an accident, that a small plane had crashed into one of the towers. My tone probably made it seem like no big deal. At the time, I didn’t think it was. Of course I too was wrong.

Moments after we said goodbye, I parked, entered the building and climbed the stairs to my desk just in time to see the second plane strike Tower II.

Like millions of other people, I watched it happen live on TV.

Suddenly it was a very big deal.

I tried to reach my boyfriend but couldn’t. For hours, I tried to get him back on the phone. But cell phones were useless that day. All circuits were busy. No one could get through.

In pure panic, I called my mom. I was in shock when I said, “Happy birthday.” She was in shock too when she thanked me for the flowers I’d sent her. Then she told me that my dad was in New York too and that she hadn’t been able to reach him either. But she put her own worst fear aside to focus on me. Was I OK?

I wasn’t even close to OK. Neither was she. No one was. We were all scared to death that day and rightfully so. What was happening? No one knew for sure. As the details unfolded throughout the day, it only became scarier and more confusing. None of it made any sense. It was all too horrifying to be true.

My mom’s voice was the only thing that comforted me. Even though we were in different states, knowing she was there somehow helped. It gave me hope. And with her there on the phone with me, I wasn’t alone.

People were leaving work to go home to be with their loved ones. Some stayed behind, glued to their desks or huddled around television monitors. Like me, maybe they didn’t know where else to go. Should I have gone home to my empty apartment? I practically lived at work so it made more sense for me to stay there. At a point, that too became too hard to bear.

I could no longer sit there waiting. I needed to go out and physically search for him. I’d heard people were flooding out of Manhattan and many of them were heading for Hoboken. So a coworker/friend drove me there.

I remember how oddly peaceful and eerily beautiful it was outside that day. It felt like the first day of spring. Was it all a bad dream?

My father eventually got out of New York and came home to my mother, giving her a birthday present that blew my 1-800-Flowers out of the water.

My then-boyfriend made it out of the city too. His ordeal was far more traumatic. He’d finally made it to his office after speaking to me that morning and from his window he later told me that he could see the towers burning. His office building was eventually evacuated and he managed to make it on foot to the Hudson River, where he somehow got across and then walked home.

He couldn’t talk about what he saw that day. He gave me blurbs here and there. I tried not to press him for the details I was sure I could already see on his face. I was horrified for him when he eventually told me some of what he’d seen, like people jumping from windows. I could only try to be there for him.

While a day that didn’t make sense continues to not make sense 10 years later, it’s true that the whole world changed that day. I know my life did.

For one, I am obviously no longer with that same person. He broke up with me exactly 2 months later. That’s OK. It simply wasn’t meant to be and it didn’t take me long to figure out what was.

I know how lucky I was that day.

It breaks my heart when I hear stories of people who lost loved ones. Tears fill my eyes and I get the exact same lump in my throat every time I think about it. But in a way, my experience on 9/11/01 helped set me free. I learned a lot about myself that day and in the days and months which followed. I learned to appreciate my life and not to take anyone in it for granted. I learned to follow my heart and to go after my dreams.

You and I live in a post 9-11 world. It’s a world where anything can happen. We can choose to keep on living and trying to achieve great things or we can run and hide in a corner. I don’t know about you but if there’s a chance that it could all end tomorrow, I refuse to waste this moment.

Today is a significant day in our nation’s history. It’s a day to look back and remember something we could never possibly forget, to honor the heroes and pay tribute to all those who lost their lives or loved someone who did. But most of all, it is a day to be thankful for life itself and for the people who love us.

And today is my mom’s birthday.

Happy birthday, Mom. I love you. And I thank God for you every day.

You’re It

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My husband and I made a trip to the DMV yesterday.

That’s never fun… right?

Well I wasn’t looking forward to it. That’s for sure. But we’d put it off long enough. Finally, after (practically) receiving death threats from the New York DMV, we gave in and got our vehicles registered in Iowa (a task we should have done much sooner but our titles had been lost in the seemingly bottomless abyss of boxes still stacked in the garage from our not-so-recent relocation).

Not only was it kind of hard to part with my New York plates (silly, I know), but who wants to spend a day at the DMV? Last I checked it still wasn’t the happiest place on earth. In fact, it’s usually the opposite of that.

But if you were at the Mills County, Iowa DMV yesterday, you wouldn’t have known it by looking at my kid. Nope.

She was as happy as could be, skipping and hopping and having a grand time running up to random people (as if there’s any other kind at the DMV), smiling and joyfully shouting “I see you!!!”

Yes, she was playing Hide ‘n Seek. And, perhaps by default, the people at the DMV ended up playing Hide ‘n Seek too because a 2-year-old reminded them that it was OK to do so. I was amazed how she so easily transformed one of the most hated places on earth into a magical, whimsical playland in a matter of minutes. She actually managed to make it fun.

It was wonderful to see complete strangers playing along. Some were DMV employees, while others were patrons waiting their turn or simply passers-by. Some were far more serious than others. A few were dressed in business suits, possibly on their way to the court house. They certainly weren’t dressed for play time. They had other things on their minds. But eventually everyone gave in and played. It was nice. A little odd at first but nice.

In fact it rather quickly turned into Play Day at the DMV. Everyone participated. My daughter saw to it that no one was left out. That’s for sure. People, both children and adults, were peek-a-booing at one another playfully. It made it so, for the first time in my whole life, not only did I enjoy my time spent at the DMV but I didn’t want to leave. Have you ever truthfully (and without sarcasm) been able to say that?

Children are wonderful, aren’t they? Who else could make the DMV fun? If an adult had done what my daughter did today, he or she would have likely been arrested or shot with a tranquilizer dart or something. OK, maybe that’s extreme. But certainly they would have received strange looks and maybe even a twirly-finger-around-the-ear type gesture or two.

Perhaps it’s simply impossible to stay serious when approached by a child, smiling from ear to ear with sweet, inviting “let’s play!” eyes and a face beaming with innocence and excitement.

And, really, what better place for an impromptu game of Hide ‘n Seek than at the DMV? Seriously, I can’t think of one… can you?

Granted, the Iowa DMV is nothing like the New York DMV. Sure, they do the same things. But, for example, my husband and I were first and second in line to have our cars registered. Crazy, huh? Even crazier? It’s a holiday week!

In the past, we’ve waited hours (and not just the minimal quantity of hours to technically qualify as the plural form of the word hour but an actual # of hours long enough to fully cultivate an urge to stab yourself in the eye). New York DMVs have serpentines and electronic number machines and dozens upon dozens of lines, each one with a separate function, and hundreds of rows of chairs full of people who honestly look like they’d been waiting for days, weeks, months maybe. My husband and I once waited for over 4 hours only to be told we were in the wrong line and then had to start over. And it smells there! No, not like cookies. And you wait so long that you inevitably become numb to that smell, then eventually you become that smell.

Here in Iowa, like I said, we were first and second in line. I can prove it too. Our license plates are literally one number apart. Weird, huh? I would post pictures but I’m not sure what the rules of identity theft would say about that (and I’m too lazy to look it up). So you’ll have to take my word.

Even weirder? The people there are nice! They gave my daughter a lollipop. Sure, banks do that all the time… but the DMV? Really? And I feel confident that had I asked, they’d have given me one too. The only thing I’ve ever gotten at the NY DMV was a headache and a receipt.

Not to bag on New York. I have huge love for the state and the city, the people (even those at the DMV) included. I’m just saying that maybe, just maybe, they would benefit from an impromptu game of Hide ‘n Seek. Or maybe Tag is more their speed?

Do you remember how wonderful it was to play games like Hide ‘n Seek and Tag? I loved both, especially Tag though I hated being “It.” I still do.

Sometimes I too want to run up to a random friendly face, smile and say “I see you!!” I would like it if someone (preferably not a violent lunatic with a knife) did that for me. But it’s nice being seen. Isn’t it? Who wants to be invisible? Maybe for a moment but not forever.

Or simply tag them “It” so I don’t have to be “It” anymore. Sometimes I need a break from being “It” all the time. I’m sure it’s not just me. Do you ever feel that way? Maybe you and I could share a laugh and frolic together instead for a moment, letting go of the stress of the day. It might be nice to share “It” – whatever “It” is with someone else rather than struggling with “It” or through “It” on our own, or keeping “It” buried inside. The burden of “It” can be a big one. “It” isn’t always easy. Is it? But if we share “It” maybe the burden of “It” will become easier to bare.

Maybe it’s not appropriate in everyday life to break into Hide ‘n Seek or Tag or any other childhood game. Red Rover, maybe? Nah, probably not. After all, we are grownups and we have very serious matters to attend to. We don’t have the time for silly childish things like games or recess or naps.

Well that’s too bad.

But wouldn’t it be great?

Check that. It is great. Life. Who says we have to be so serious all the time? You’re not the boss of me. Saw that one coming, didn’t ya?

I think children have it right. The world doesn’t always have to be such a serious, uptight, stressful place. After all, it’s full of butterflies and daisies and kittens. I want to laugh and be silly, frolic (yes, frolic! what? you don’t frolic?) and have fun. I want to enjoy this moment while we’re in it.

I bet you do too.

So tag! You’re It!!