What a month!
It took a couple weeks, but thankfully
Katherine and I have recovered from Covid. The Remdesivir infusions went well,
and thanks to my friends I had plenty of food for Pesach (Passover).
Unfortunately I kept struggling with nausea, and was wiped out from off and on
low grade fevers, so my seders weren’t terribly festive. But I made it through
Pesach, and my symptoms didn’t turn into anything serious, so I didn’t have to
go to the hospital. Yay!
Getting through immediate illness without major
complications is only the first hurdle though. Now I need to wait and see how
my lungs do afterwards. Every infection has the potential to trigger rejection,
which is part of the reason why infections are so dangerous for me. So far my
lungs seem to be doing ok, but I need to keep an eye on them for the next few
weeks and make sure nothing starts to deteriorate. I’m not sure exactly how
long it will be until I’m in the clear, but my next transplant appointment is towards
the end of May, so if my lung function looks good then I’ll assume everything
is fine. Thank G-d, so far I’ve managed almost 6 years post-transplant without
a single episode of rejection, which is remarkable! Hopefully I can continue
that streak!!
Even though I was pretty much done with
symptoms after 2 weeks, my transplant team said I was still presumed contagious
for a full 21 days. Aside from making it difficult to fight infections, being immunosuppressed
also makes it difficult to fully clear infections, so we tend to shed viruses for
longer than most people. Which means I’ve been mostly quarantined for the last
3 weeks. The first 2 weeks didn’t really matter because I was too wiped out
anyway, but I’ve really felt mostly fine for the last week. I was able to mask
up and leave the house once for lab work and a vascular ultrasound (which
thankfully showed that the blood clot in my arm has fully resolved! Woohoo!),
but aside from that I’ve been stuck at home.
But today I was finally set free! I celebrated
by… going to physical therapy. Ha. I’ve been dealing with off and on hip pain
since transplant, but never quite got around to dealing with it. It’s typically
only an issue if I walk for more than 15 minutes or so, and I have a pathetically
sedentary lifestyle, so it doesn’t come up much. But a couple months ago I
finally got a primary care doctor for the first time in years to look into some
random shoulder pain, and I figured I may as well mention all my random aches
and pains while I was at it. So she referred me to an orthopedist, who referred
me for physical therapy, where I’m now working to strengthen my hips. I only
went for 2 weeks though before catching Covid and being out of commission for
the next 3 weeks. Hopefully now I can get back on track and get stronger, and
maybe start doing something about making a change to that sedentary lifestyle!
And just to be extra celebratory, tomorrow I’m
getting a tooth extracted! We found the first cavity of my entire life back in September,
but it’s close to the nerve so they couldn’t drill it. It’s also in a wisdom
tooth, so instead of going to the trouble of a root canal we’re just going to
extract it. It took some time to get things squared away with my transplant
team, and then to get an appointment with an oral surgeon, but eventually we
scheduled an extraction appointment for December. Aaaand then Lump exploded,
and the subsequent hospitalization, surgery, and other medical shenanigans promptly
pushed all dental issues to the wayside. So now it’s finally time to address my
tooth. After 46 years without a single significant dental issue, I am NOT
excited for this. There’s also the fact that immunosuppression and steroids
impede healing, so I have no clue how the recovery is going to go. Here’s
hoping everything ends up going smoothly!
April has pretty much sucked, and the last few
months in general have been A LOT. Hopefully this will be my last painful
procedure for a long time!!
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