Lovebuch family happenings

I got out of the hosptial on Thursday afternoon. I had to stay one more day than we originally thought because the attending wanted to see what happened to my temps if they stopped the antibiotics. The temps stayed the same, so the next day I got out in the afternoon. After being cooped up in that room I was ready to go, and of course at the last minute, my nurse came in and said we need 5 more nutes, cause your cyclosporin levels just came back, and they were high. Of course, logically what's 5 minutes when I had been there for some 80 hours? But since I was so close, that felt like way too long. Thankfully, the pharmacist came down to see me after only 2 minutes, and I explained that the SCCA nurses will figure this out, and they'll call me, I could tell that the Pharmacist really wanted to tie this case up in a bow right now, but it wasn't going to happen, and didn't need to happen. She accepted that after a little back-and-forth, and my nurse escorted me out to the

Tuesday Day 61. First virus on the new immune system Things were going nice, but then they took a turn for a worse and the whole family got colds. On Thursday night, Alpen was hacking and sneezing some green stuff. Breezy started not feeling well. So on Friday, I decided to make a run for Edmonds and get out of the house in case I hadn’t been infected yet. I stopped by SCCA on the way to do a nasal swab so we would know what type of virus (if any) we were working with. I didn’t have a fever which was the first thing they asked me (and asked about Breezy and AlPal) cause a fever could mean influenza and the flu would mean real bad news. The swabs take 24 hours to result, so on Saturday up in Edmonds, I found out I had not one but 2 viruses(!): a Corona virus and a Boca virus. So I didn’t escape Columbia City in time, but then the question are these the same viruses that Alpen and Breezy have? Without them getting swabbed, we didn’t know. So to be safe, I remained in Edmonds over th

Day 57 Things are chugging along nicely lately, which has been a relief. Been feeling pretty good in most departments. I've had a little trouble sleeping with the prednisone, but GI, appetite, and energy levels are good. I go into the clinic every Monday and Thursday, and occasionally, one or two other mornings for blood draws to check CMV and Cyclosporin levels. A cool thing about doing transplants in 2017 is the ability to administer IV medicine to myself at home through my Hickman site. Without this, it would be daily trips to the clinic or long hospital stays. The SCCA uses a home-infusion company, Coram, which talk with my team and ship me everything I need for care at home. They loan me a $2000 small pump, and supply the tubing, flushes, and IV drugs. Most week days I get 2-3 calls a day from either my Orange team at the SCCA or Coram trying to coordinate deliveries and dosing changes. Coram is super handy, but resource intense, like all of medicine. Since scripts chan