Progress update

It's been two days short of a month now that I received the transplant, and it already seems like a distant event. Both Jen and I are recovering on schedule, if a bit ahead of schedule. Today was labs and clinic again at the transplant center for me.

Jen finished two weeks ago with her follow-up meetings with the transplant team, got cleared to drive and go back to work when she feels ready. She's still sore, but was hoping to get back to the gym this week. Saturday, it snowed here, and Sunday was bright and sunny, so we went out for a walk. The road was icy and Jen hit a bit of an icy spot, she slipped, didn't go down, but realized in the recovery that not all the muscles were recovered yet, so she's postponing the return to the gym for a week.

I'm recovering as well, just a bit more slowly than Jen (given that I have to adapt to a new kidney). My vitals continue to be stable, with no sign of rejection. My labs are good, my creatinine is stable and meds are working. My appetite is back, I stopped losing weight and have now stabilized, and even added a couple back. Anne has been tweaking my meds so that they are just enough, not too much. Today, she released me to drive again! And I don't have to do morning-and-night monitoring of temp, BP, weight, liquids in and out any more, just track every other day or so. In other good news areas, my headaches that were almost a daily event have stopped. That apparently was related to the toxins in my blood, because with few exceptions, I'm on the same meds as I was on before the transplant.

And in another mildly interesting factoid, it seems that not only do our bodies have a circadian rhythm, but individual organs also have them. So that, according to Anne, why my I'm still getting up in the middle to the night to go to the bathroom. She said that over time that they will get back in sync, but it will take some time.

My next clinic/labs appointment is in 2 weeks, as they ramp back the monitoring. (However, after the labs on the 21st, I get to go upstairs at the transplant center and get my stent removed. A "minor" procedure, they say. Right.)

Today, we also went wine shopping for Jen's wedding at Total Wine in Chantilly. Its right across the street from my regular nephrologist, Dr. Assefi, so I walked over and set a check-up with then for February. That's when my care from the transplant center transitions back to him. Porche, his nurse, was glad to see me and they were surprised that I was already up and about.

Anne and I also talked about when I can go back to work. Right now, she has it set for the 28th of Dec. As we go through the holidays, we'll see if that stands. Since the government is pretty much shut down from the middle of this month till the new year, likely that we'll postpone that until the new year.

As for this blog, I'll keep occasional posts as there is news.

Thanks for reading, and for your prayers, thoughts and support. It's worked.

gc