My Double Lung Transplant

Tuesday, December 21, 2010

Nothing else matters

4 days before my 1 year back in August I received my donor letter.

Now, 4 days before Christmas I sit in the aftermath of learning that a 2nd donor letter has arrived.

Think it can make it before Christmas?

We wait...

Monday, December 20, 2010

Lungs of Awesome

I have accomplished a lot today.

1) I woke up and got dressed and flew out the door at superhuman amazing speed
2) I got Timmies
3) I sped to Kitchener
4) I did my PFTs
5) I got my port flushed
6) I got more Vivaglobin ordered
7) I fed someone's cats

And here I sit.

I initially thought my PFTs were botched and that I ruined them, seeing as I broke the cardinal rule of consuming a huge drink before hand. I guzzled my XL tea because there's no way I can drive to Kitchener in that kind've traffic without tea in my system and not feel the urge to murder people for driving and/or acting like assholes. But alas, it didn't ruin anything. However, I did make up for it by taking the 4 flights of stairs instead of the elevator so maybe that also helped.

So what were my PFTs you ask? Well, grab your gochies, and your extremeties, and push any and all Old people of out the way: 87%!!!!!!!!

AHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! 6% higher than last month! WOO HOO! I'm sooooooo thrilled, and it makes it even better because I met with my respirologist last week who told me I was too healthy to be there and to get the hell out of her office and that she didn't want to see my face for another 6 months. So this just makes it better! It actually blows my mind because it's taken me a good 5 months to get my PFTs up since having that small bout of pneumonia. It wasn't even bad but it took 10% off my PFTs and only now am I getting it back. I know I'll get back up to 90 + % but Jesus, I can't imagine what couldn've happened if the pneumonia was any worse!

Blood work on the other hand has been screwy: Cyclo levels too high, so my Cyclo pills have dropped from 175mg 2x a day to 100mg 2x a day, Imurran has dropped from 75mg once a day to 50mg once a day because my RBC are low (79...120 is normal). Yeah, i'm extremely anemic, but when you figure this:

1) I have gastroparesis, and can't digest fats

and

2) Iron pills constipate me beyond all comprehension

it equals

3) Being kind've fucked

And honestly, you can only take laxatives and colonic so much before your body says "Fuck you" and it stops working. I take 4 laxatives a day and that helps, but if i go an introduce iron pills into my diet it messes everything up. I see my immunologist next month so we'll see what concoction he comes up with to fix me. If not, oh well.

What else? I officially have half my trip saved up for! Weeeeeeeeee!!! I still have to book flights and the like but it's under way!!! 5 months now holy-ness! :)

And for now, I think that's it.

Sunday, December 12, 2010

Ok, Ok

I know I've been absent. And I won't lie, I don't have a legit reason. I've had nothing interesting to post about and when I have thought of something worth posting about, I've just been too lazy to do so.

Currently I am stuffing my face with Smarties and looking at pics of a fellow tx'ers tx. He had it not even 2 weeks ago and is already out! Unfortunately for the morbily minded like myself, the pics aren't gorey, but you can't have it all eh?

Sometimes the best pics are the before and after lung shots. The old lungs vs the new. Sometimes it's nice to see really horribly diseased, bloody disfigured lungs, compared to healthy, pink, sturdy lungs. I used to actually think that being sick was all in my head, even near the end when I was coughing shit up that was the colour and consistency of flourescent green Gak. Then I breathed easily with new lungs and realized, "Ok. I wasn't crazy".

Megs had the best tx pics, b/c she had pics of herself cranked right open during surgery, and pics of her old lungs splattered in a dish. Her old lungs actually flaked apart b/c they had to be scraped from her chest cavity. Those kinda pics make you want to grab a snack so you can enjoy the show.

Um....

I had my final exam on Monday. So far, that's all I know.

And that's pretty much it. I've been pretty boring lately, and I apologize.