Eight months ago tonight I was living with new organs.
It's been quite the road this post transplant road to recovery. As mentioned in my last post I am currently doing my best to beat the Cytomegalovirus. I am doing this in a way that will come as no surprise to most of you - and that is - on my own terms. I was instructed at the time of the last post that I would need daily IVs for the foreseeable future. I could either carry an IV pump with me 24/7 for the infusion or I could sit down for approx. 1.5 hours twice a day and administer the IVs to myself. This was to be done via a PICC line that they would put in my upper right arm, snake through my shoulder, my chest, and into an area of my heart.
Like this -
OK This over exaggerated, highly distorted, and complete misrepresentation is Bob's idea of the proposed PICC line.
-taking the long way home as opposed to using my left arm because of the fistula that I have in my left arm. This is the same reason they must give me all IVs and take all my blood draws and blood pressures from my right arm. Darn fistula.
So after being told all of the ins and outs of such an undertaking, I politely said "No." and said I was willing to take the high doses of the potent oral meds and see where that got us. Though this required quite the concession by Dr. Yang, he decided to let me try it and one week later, the CMV rate, which a post tx coordinator told me was the highest she'd ever seen, had come down a bit. Tomorrow I go for another measure and if the meds have continued to do the trick, then we will continue with current drug therapy.
Although I have a few other issues that I'm dealing with concurrently, this has been the biggest and most dangerous pest. I'll complain more on the others later. For now, I'm happy to be here and happy to be winning the CMV battle.
Hard to believe it was only eight months ago tonight that I was laying in ICU astonished to be alive.
Sooooo much has happened and we've been through sooooo much since then.
Thanks for sticking this out with me and for continuing to check in here.
Eight is Great and more soon.
