If we’re being honest, and I really see no reason not to be at this point, this was a pretty wild year – both for better and for worse.
By far the most significant event, obviously, was my getting a kidney transplant, to the extent that I could probably just end this post now and leave it at that!
But looking back through my social media accounts and my calendar, there were a lot of other noteworthy things that happened in 2025 and I would be remiss if I didn’t at least give them a nod in this post as we attempt to close the books on one year before moving forward to a fresh slate limited only by my health and the economy and politics and my day job and countless other factors that I don’t even want to think about right now… 😉
- I transitioned from peritoneal dialysis to hemodialysis.
Well, technically I did this the last week of the previous year, but 2025 is when I did the majority of my HD sessions – specifically three 4-hour sessions a week for roughly 8.5 months, or a little over 400 hours of getting my blood filtered! No wonder I was so exhausted all of the time! Admittedly I was pretty scared to make this transition because it felt a lot more intense than the PD process, but PD just wasn’t working for me anymore so it’s what I needed to stay alive. I’m not going to elaborate in this post, but it’s hard for anyone who hasn’t gone through dialysis to know what a drain it is on the body, even with my nurses and family and doctor working to make it as painless of a process as possible. - I also spent upwards of an entire month in the hospital … before my transplant!
Not all at once, mind you, but for a few days to a week at a time, I’d get admitted with some random infection, and they’d do all sorts of tests and have me do dialysis in the hospital, which is kind of cool because they come to your room and the machine is way more accurate so you’re not likely to cramp, and eventually they’d let me out on antibiotics … and about a week after they’d run their course, I’d be back all over again. One time also led me to having my gallbladder removed, once was because I caught COVID, and once actually threatened to delay my transplant because my dialysis catheter itself had gotten infected, so it’s really a wonder I did anything at all leading up to the actual transplant! - We did have a mini vacation at Legoland…
Our homeschool group got discounted tickets for the day and I was feeling ok at the moment, so I rented a scooter for the park and we spent the day running around with the kids, doing rides and whatnot before spending the night at the Legoland Hotel next door as a little reward. The hotel was super well designed and interactive, and we loved the room, just not so much the food. I also wouldn’t recommend the COVID that I caught here, but that was basically the theme of 2025 for me in a nutshell. - We also took the kids to Brick Fan Fest for the third year in a row!
Only lasted a couple of hours because I was perpetually sick by this point, but it gave us enough time to do a little browsing and shopping, which was good enough for us – thank goodness! - MY KIDNEY TRANSPLANT WAS SUCCESSFUL!!!
All of the kudos known to man for my amazing sister-in-law donating a living piece of herself to me, along with my doctors for performing the transplant as well as also apparently saving my life when one of my lungs collapsed in the OR … if there’s one thing I felt during all of my medical issues and hospital visits this year, it was that I am very humbled by all of the care and compassion that medical professionals put into helping us get better and keeping us alive. Ultimately I was in this hospital for about a week until they were confident my new kidney was moving in the right direction, and frankly now looking back four and a half months later, I’m very grateful that it’s still performing like a champ in there, cramped as it may currently be alongside my two behemoth-sized former kidneys that are essentially very disgusting looking paperweights at this point… - I got to spend some quality time with a good friend who came down to help during my recovery…
…which was both great and also awe-inspiring as he also happens to be the most productive person on the planet, proven by how he made quick work of so many to-do lists that I’ve been stumbling over for the past year or so! He also got me into collecting Magic cards again, which is a dangerous/expensive hobby to entertain, but I’ve been having a lot of fun with it both through nostalgia as well as the newer sets that they’ve been releasing. - My wife and I celebrated our 18th wedding anniversary!
It’s funny how time gets lost when you’re dealing with all of this chaotic life-stuff, but I’m lucky to have her as a partner and I’m still optimistic that in a couple of years we’ll be able to get away by ourselves for a proper vacation at the 20-year mark! - We also got to see Lucy Darling perform live!
The show was hilarious, but you don’t have to take my word for it… - I finished building Giant Lego Mario!
And the Titanic. And The Milky Way. All in all, I cleared at least 17,000 bricks just between those three sets while I was on leave from work for recovery! Time. Well. Spent. - We went on a homeschool field trip to a local aquarium and arcade…
…they were two separate places, mind you, but the aquarium was cool because despite being small, they had a really great guide to introduce us to all of the animals and there were plenty that the kids got to touch. As for the arcade, they had a HUGE SELECTION of maybe 75 machines each of arcades and pinball, so it was fun to watch the kids exploring the classics that we grew up on while also getting to revisit tons of old favorites. - We spent a morning volunteering at Feeding Tampa Bay.
This was probably one of my most favorite things of the year and I’m already looking forward to doing more of it in 2026. It’s amazing the reach they have here in our local area and I love knowing that we’re teaching the kids that it’s important to help out our friends and neighbors because anybody can slip up and need some help in this unpredictable world. - CHRISTMAS.
I missed a bunch of stuff that I had wanted to do and money was tighter than I had expected, but I did through a series of convenient mishaps end up making a different kind of meatballs in the crock pot pretty much every weekend throughout the month of December!
And last but not least, here are a few things that I learned along the way this year…
- Gratitude – both for the BIG THINGS as well as the little things around me – the ones that you have to stop and take a breath to notice. Those are the things that carry you through life.
- Faith – namely that everything is going to be alright and whatever problem we’re facing is solvable. Like the old saying goes, “You’ve survived 100% of the bad days that you’ve ever experienced.”
- Self Awareness – when you notice yourself becoming something that you don’t like, stop and do something different.
- Appreciating Grandeur – it’s simply amazing how all of these random parts of the human body come together to make us what we know in life, and likewise how far science has come to enabling us to fix parts of it when they break down. It’s now my responsibility to make sure that the advancements that I benefitted from this year weren’t spent on me in vain.
That’s all for 2025 – happy new year and let’s see what 2026 has to offer us!