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  • 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.

  • 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.

  • It’s the little things

    Earlier today I paused midstep as I was jogging up the stairs and thought “Holy Fuck, I just jogged up the stairs. Cool!

  • Back in Boston

    Well, I’m back in Boston for another three day hospital stay. Three days of steroid treatments to get rid of a little bit of rejection that is still left from the last time. Three days of boredom. Anyone want to bring over a DVD to watch?

  • Evel Knievel and IPF

    The Billings Gazette has an article up about how Evel Knievel has Ideopathic Pulmonary Fibrosis (IPF).

    TWIN FALLS, Idaho – Evel Knievel may have finally met his match. And he’s not going to clear this hurdle.

    Renowned for his death-defying stunts, Knievel has now landed in major medical trouble. He says his doctors give him three to five years to live.

    Knievel suffers from idiopathic pulmonary fibrosis, a condition that scars the lungs, replacing the air sacs with scar tissue. As the scars form, the tissue becomes thicker, reducing the lung’s ability to absorb oxygen. There is no cure. [BillingsGazette.com]

    Here’s sending my best, it’s a horrible disease.

  • Hospital – Day 3 – Escape!

    Today at around 1:30pm I’ll be escaping the hospital and heading home. This has been quite the uneventful stay, but that was pretty much to be expected. I also won’t really know the results of my stay for a few weeks. The downside is that my Prednisone dose will go up for a few weeks. Hopefully I won’t put on the same amount of weight as I had. I’m just shy of where I want to be.

    Also, having the laptop has been a big lifesaver. I’ve made it through two DVDs and been able to interact with people on-line. Much nicer than just staring at the wall for hours and spacing out. Next time I’ll have to let more people know that I’m going to be having a hospital stay so I can get more visitors (thanks for stopping by this moring Ece!).

    And the nurse has just arrived for my last steroid dosage for my stay, which will take around an hour.

  • Back in the Hospital

    As I said in my last post I’m back in the hospital for three days to get some nice high doses of steroids to combat some acute rejection. This is fairly run of the mill stuff, no need to panic or anything. I actually feel fine, the goal is to nip this in the bud before it gets serious.

    Given that there’s not a heck of a lot to do here I’ll possibly be posting a bit more often than I have been.

  • Lung Update

    Last Tuesday I had a bronchoscopy, which is a fun procedure where they send a scope down into your lungs to make sure everything is okay. In my case there was a little bit of inflammation, which can be a sign of rejection. As a result they want me to come in for three days to get some high doses of anti-rejection medications via IV.

    So on Monday I’ll be going into the hospital till Wednesday. If I get my act together I’ll set up a dial-up account before then so I can be online from the hospital this time.

  • Hot Damn, Pt. 2

    I made it to the end of the street and back. The key thing to do I’ve discovered is wake up early an do it before the day warms up. Next up is to make it halfway around the block, which will mean I can hopefully go the rest of the way around the block to return :).

  • Hot Damn

    Just now I made it up the stairs from the first to the second floor without using my cane. I never thought I’d be so excited by stairs. The lung is working great still, every bit of exercise makes me feel a bit stronger. My next goal is to be able to walk around the block by the end of the month.