First day back blogging, first day of a new year.

Finally a return to blogging. Hopefully a better, more efficient, more productive, more inspired and qualitative and creative year. Or that's my intention, and being that today is an anniversary I'm trying to start as I mean to go on.

The anniversary in question is the end of the first year of transplant. The so described crucial year, where they start to (knock on wood) let you travel outside the country, loosen up how often they see you and generally the medical people treat it as a line crossed, primarily based on the statistics that most problems (more wood knocking) happen in the first year. And I've had a pretty good year - I might complain about some of the adjustments and I might genuinely have found it really hard to get back to normal because muscle mass just isn't the same, but no huge problems. No giant shocking complications like an artery detaching from new organ and almost bleeding you out. No strokes from a sudden uncontrollable rise in blood pressure, no painful and delirium inducing organ rejection making the whole thing a waste of time.

Pretty good. Wholely different from the experience of this dude:



Pastor Marrion P'Udongo is, as the video indicates, a fixer in Congo who helps everyone he can, the video doesn't even slightly touch on how many lives he's saved directly and indirectly in his work. And now he's recovering from a kidney transplant and not having a good time (as the updates on the indiegogo fund explain). It sounds like he's probably feeling so sick he wouldn't be as chipper as he was in this video:



On the other hand, he's a pretty inspiring guy, maybe he's even more chipper. His transplant has only just started working and only barely, and the fund to pay for his medical bills is down to about $500 - if they get the kidney working properly, after that he needs to pay for the medications that'll keep it going in the future, and that stuff aint cheap.

Comparison time. To keep someone on dialysis in Britian costs about £40,000. It is more economically sound for someone to be a transplant patient. Most people who hear that would think duh, it probably doesn't cost anything - in fact it costs upwards of 20,000 mostly because of drugs. I'm on three different pills, that's pretty small and uncomplicated compared to other patients with continuing problems, mine just covers stopping my body recognising the new kidney as foreign flesh and brings down my high blood pressure. One of the pills I need, Prograf, costs over a grand each time I pick up a couple of boxes. Maybe a month's worth. The other immunosuppressant costs slightly more than that. The cocktail of drugs I had to take in the first three months probably cost a lot more. Like everyone else in Britain who doesn't get all those capsules and pressed powder pills for free, I pay my £7ish per prescription title, and that's that.

So when they say they need a lot more cash to save Pastor Marrion, I believe it. This guy saves lives, seems a shame to let him die because his hospital might stop treating him and he might not be able to get any blister packs of shiny capsules. 

Now, usually I wouldn't write something like this on the film blog. I wouldn't tell people what to do, or demand that they care about something that might be wholely unconnected to their interests. Nothing is more offputting than being told you should care about something else when everyone has difficult stuff to deal with. But the guy saves lives. In different parts of Congo. On purpose, continually, just because it's the right thing to do. And that's seems worth shouting about - if I ever even saved one life, it'll probably be by accident, and I'm sure many other people can say the same. I'm not half as good as this guy, and my transplant is going well. Doesn't seem fair.

In commemoration of the one year anniversary Ant has been linking to the fund to raise awareness. And being that he's my donor and he did save my life, and even though he could stop caring about kidney failure patients he takes the time to care about this when I am shamefully oblivious until he told me, I thought I should try to holla about it as well -

Here is a TIME article about the Pastor's work: A Fixer In Need

And the indiegogo fund page:   The-Pastor-Marrion-Fund

If you don't find this post annoyingly preachy and demanding, go take a look at his page and see if you can donate something to him! He might not have much time.

And back to our regularly scheduled programming - next week will be foreign movie week, including some actually, for real blog posts about films! :D