Life listed chronologically

Categories

Archives

Recent Posts

  • More Medical Fun

    Time for a bit of a health update. I’m coming up on my one year birthday on April 14th. Just to keep me from going too nuts celebrating, I’m going to be having stomach surgery sometime soon. The doctors think that I have continuing issues with acid reflux and are going to tie off my esophagus in my stomach. When they tie it off, it prevents the acid from coming back up. Though it doesn’t keep food from going in (though at first I’ll be limited to soft foods). While they are in there they will also open up the base of my stomach to help food flow a little bit better.

    I’m actually not that nervous about it. Maybe having surgery as major as a transplant makes one a little jaded. I was more bothered by the other options. One was do nothing and hope for the best, no reason to tempt fate there. The other was one where I’d have a drainage tube from my stomach and a feeding tube into my intestines. With an added bonus of just not eating food.

    No word on when exactly it will be, but I’m having a handful of tests next week in preparation for it. Including my favorite test, an endoscopy.

    It will all be worth it though. The reflux is something that may have been the source of a bunch of health issues, including possibly my initial lung problems. I’ll still probably never know for sure, but just having a possible cause is kinda nice. And I’d rather the reflux not cause issues with my new lung.

  • Teeth

    There are lots of fun side effects to getting an organ transplant. Most of these come from the various drugs you are on after the transplant. You get things that cut down your immune system, lots of steroids, etc. One of the more fun side effects is that you can lose bone density. I get treatments to help it, but I can only assume that this is at least part of the reason why I’ve had two teeth have hunks that have broken off in the last six months. I already feel fanatical about brushing, sheesh.

    Today it happened while eating a tuna fish sandwhich, I wasn’t even eating anything hard. Time for a trip to the dentist.

  • Remember

    Organ Donation rules.

    ~Ksazar Pictures Txstarwars

    May the force be with you.

  • Escape from the Hospital

    Thursday morning, I went up to Brigham & Womens for a bronchoscopy. They like to do them on me now and then to make sure that everything is all fine with my new lung (one of my breathing tests was a little bit off last time I went into the office). For lung transplant recipients it a fairly regular occurance. In the past year I’ve had 4 or 5 (already losing count).

    This time around my oxygen levels weren’t so great after the bronch. It is one of the list of possible side effects of the procedure (along with fun things like them collapsing your lung). So, that combined with a wacky heartbeat (got up to 200 yesterday) earned me a stay in the hospital for a night. At first I thought the worst thing was having to do those three day hospital stays for a steroid pulse. I’ve now learned that the worst thing is not being prepared to suddenly have to stay in the hospital overnight. Crappy TV, only got CBS (which wasn’t all bad, got to watch CSI), felt kinda grumpy, didn’t sleep well, etc.

    I’m home now, and the good news is: no signs of rejection. Of course that probably means some more strange tests to make sure nothing else is going wrong.

  • Speaking of Six Months

    I just got a great T-shirt that I’d ordered from Cafepress today.

    Tshirt saying I contain recycled parts

    To see what other products are offered, click on the picture above. And remember, being an organ donor is a good thing. Visit the Donate Life webpage for more information.

  • Six Months

    Six months down, hopefully many many many many more to go.

  • Crappy Weather, Part 2

    I was kind of dreading driving up to Boston in the rain, and now I’m not driving up. I just got a call from my local pulmonologist asking me to come in for and EKG today (so that I can start pulmonary rehab tomorrow). And lunch plans didn’t workout so I won’t be missing that either. Of course, now I can’t get up there till Friday, which is kind of annoying.

  • What Should I Do

    Coming up soon is the six month anniversary of my lung transplant (Oct. 14th). I’m trying to figure out just what I should do for this. Maybe some kind of get-together that weekend or maybe something this weekend. I definitely want to do something. Leaves look like they’ve got another few weeks so I’m putting that on hold. Maybe a fall BBQ? A nocturnal party with some music? Anyone up for actually coming down?

    I’ve been feeling really good lately. So I’m up for something fun.

  • Insurance Annoyance #5

    Augh.

    I just got off the phone with my insurance company to find out that they’d sent me the wrong forms to get some of my meds covered. And had been giving me only semi-correct information for the last two months. So now I have to go around and find out what happened to the two claims I already sent in to the wrong place.

    Next rant will be about Medicare.

  • Boston, Doctors, and Good Food

    I’m back in CT after two days of doctor appointments in Boston. They wanted to check out my heart, since my heart rate had been a bit irregular right after my surgery. The good news is that my heart is doing just fine.

    Then last night we went to Evoo, one of my favorite restaurants. I’d wanted my mom to go for a while, as I thought she’d really like it. And she did. I had the Chinese Box, my favorite thing on the menu, and as always it was quite yummy.

    Then today was my regular appointment at the transplant clinic. Everything looks to be doing okay. And the best news is they gave me the okay to drive. So I believe I’ll be taking a short drive tomorrow :). So happy!