Spinning Wheels?

Well, sometimes it feels like we are spinning our wheels at Duke Medical, but I don’t think that is the case. They are just so thorough and keep testing, testing and re-testing. Guess it is normal to get a little anxious to find out when I might get listed for the transplant.

I have a test scheduled for this Monday, a barium swallow to check my diaphragm, and another pulmonary follow up on 4/11 with all the labs and breathing tests and everything. Outside of that I think everything has been done. So we are continuing to wait.

As far as our trip to see the kids last weekend, it was great. We had a wonderful time and got to spend the weekend with them all at our son’s house.  We had lots of fun, lots of good food and lots of hugs!

Those grandchildren of ours are growing so fast!! Wish we could slow that down a little because they are going to start outgrowing their grandparents as they get older!!

And Cheyenne and Sadie had a grand time too, visiting with the whole family including the 4 fur babies!!

Thanks for stopping by!

Our Update for This Week

Well, this has been a pretty busy week!! I had some appointments at the Duke Clinic. One was to start over on my Hepatitis B shots. The first series did not take. And this for a person who absolutely hates getting shots!! Oh well, we do what must be done…..

The other clinic visit was with an ear, throat and nose doctor to check my trachea. The pulmonary transplant doctors saw something on one of my tests from December and again in March. They could not determine what it was and wanted this doctor to check me out. So here we go again!! He numbed up my mouth an throat and here comes the tube down my nose again!! But it was worth it – everything looked good so nothing to worry about there.

Based on what we have learned this week I will not be held up from being listed due to my weight any further. Hurray!!!! And, according to our coordinator, if the trachea looked okay then everything was done. So that tells me I could get listed very soon, possibly right after their Tuesday meeting this coming week. Wouldn’t that be something? If we get listed we will not be able to leave the Durham/Chapel Hill area so we had to plan a trip to see the kids and grandkids!!

After the doctor visit yesterday we returned to our 5er and packed up our stuff and the fur babies and headed for SC. We got here around 4:45 and the hugs from our 2 oldest grandkids were wonderful!! And the youngest joined in when she got home!!  Stacey and Lee (daughter/son-in-law) are coming to our son’s house for the weekend also so it will be a family affair for sure.

If we get listed next week there will be a special blog update to announce it to you folks who have been so supportive through all this!! So stay tuned!!

More Road Blocks

Unfortunately, we have not had a good week. We both came down with colds, me first and then Charley. Tried a couple of times to go to the fitness center and work out but it just wasn’t meant to be. So we spent most of this week recuperating and going to the clinic so that they could check me over to make sure this was nothing more serious. And it wasn’t…..

They did put me on a zpac (antibiotic) and increased my prednisone, just to be sure to knock out any infection that might be present.

I did have to have a follow up CT Scan this week also. I wish all of the tests were as easy as this one!!

We have not yet heard what my weight gain goal is to be but I do know they are working on it. Got emails with some questions about the history of my weight so that they could take that into consideration. Hopefully I will get this information from them soon. It will help to know what to shoot for!!

Thanks for stopping by!! Have a great week.

This Week in Chapel Hill

It has been another sort of wet week here in Chapel Hill. Not a lot of rain but several overcast days and lots of high humidity.

And we noticed yesterday that there are lots of trees and flowers blooming now. Hope that we will not see any hard freezes so that they can finish their cycle unharmed!! Unfortunately, that means that the Spring pollen season has started. Not good news for folks like me with breathing problems. Heat with high humidity and pollen are the worst things I have to cope with.

We had clinic visits two days this week so my rehab/exercise schedule has suffered. Had to get several tests done including one new one that had not been done before and several follow up tests (labs, breathing test, blood gases, that sort of thing). We also met with another of the pulmonary transplant doctors and two of the transplant surgeons. Dr. Hartwig looks so young but I imagine he must be older than he looks. Dr. Reddy looked more of the age you sort of expect, but he is not that old either. But maybe being young is a good thing for this? Liked both of the surgeons. Managed to get explanations for several things Charley and I had questions about.

Did find out that my weight is the one thing standing in my way of getting listed for a transplant. I now weigh 92/93 which is 10 pounds more than when I started my rehab in early January. According to Dr. Reddy my ideal weight would be 125. BUT we don’t think they are going to expect me to gain that much. As a matter of fact they have promised to provide me with a target weight to shoot for between now and my next series of follow up clinic visits. We should get this information by the end of next week, after their committee meets on Tuesday.

Some great news, one of the ladies I was in rehab with during January and February got listed about two weeks ago and she has already had her surgery to get her new lungs and is already coming back to exercise!! She looks great and seems to be doing very well. I love these success stories! It sort of settles my fear about going through such major surgery and the recovery process.

Charley and I have been talking about how to handle our fur babies when the time comes for my surgery. We will be away for whatever length of time I am hospitalized and that is an unknown. It varies with each patient. We are thinking about finding a good facility where we can board them, rather than asking our kids to come and get them and take them back to SC. The fur babies, especially Cheyenne, would be much happier with this plan since she is so attached to us. Sadie would probably go with the flow on whatever we decide to do.

If anyone out there in blog land has ever used a pet facility in the Durham/Chapel Hill area that you were happy with, or had bad experiences with any of them, please let us know. We want to make sure that our fur babies will be well taken care of while we are away. And yes, we know we have plenty of time to address this but it never hurts to plan early. This way maybe we can try them out ahead of time.

Well, that is our update for this week. Almost wrote a novel today, huh?

Thanks for stopping by!!

First days of March

Aside from being a little soggy, all is well in Chapel Hill, NC. It has been a rainy, humid week here which does not agree with me and my breathing!! We had a couple of nice, warm days in the middle of the week but the rest have been wet, and they have all been humid!!

We did well at rehab except for one day early in the week. I had to stop short of completing exercise that day due to the humidity. But all in all a good week. We did take yesterday off due to the humidity and me being sort of tired and worn out.

With the schedule for my rehab workouts it is difficult to plan to do much else, other than preparing meals or going out to eat. So our life right now is not very exciting to read about!! We do thank all you blogger friends for keeping up with us and sending your encouraging comments. It truly helps to know that you have all kinds of support out there!!

Safe travels to you all!!