Saturday, January 29, 2011

It's been WAY to long....

I know, I know I am a horrible blogger! It's not that I haven't had anything to say because I have and everyday I think to myself "ok I am gonna write on my blog today" and then I go to bed and it doesn't happen. But I do read and keep myself updated on what is going on with all of you! :)

Ok let's see where to begin....a few weeks ago I was sick as a dog with nausea for like 2 weeks. So bad that I could barely eat or drink anything
with out having major dry heaves! I think I ate toast and applesauce and that was pretty much it. My doctor kept thinking it was the pain meds making me sick (which I knew it wasn't) but until I was off of them for couple days he wasn't ruling them out. So even though I still needed the pain meds for my foot/leg pain I stopped taking them for a couple days to prove that wasn't the culprit. When I was still sick he finally agreed to switch my prograf to cyclosporin and once he did that I wasn't sick anymore!

Now onto my leg issues....


The above picture shows a scar on my leg where the ECMO machine (the heart/lung bypass) was attached pre-tx. When I was still admitted in the hospital and both my legs and feet were massively swollen they did an ultrasound on them to make sure I didn't have a blood clot. Well good news was I didn't but there was a pocket of fluid that had formed right under the scar but they said it was fine and should go away on its own.

Fast forward a few weeks and now I am in tx housing doing outpatient physical therapy everyday but still having VERY bad pain in my left foot/leg. Its the only reason I am still having to take pain meds because if I don't its unbearable but the doctors just kept saying work through it its the nerves coming back to life after my leg not having blood flow for a day when I was on ECMO. Fine.

Well two weeks ago I noticed that the pocket of fluid under my leg scar had gotten bigger. It looked like a little football was under my skin so we once again said something to the doctor (like everyday) and finally they agreed that it wasn't normal and got us in to see the vascular surgeon that day. I had another ultrasound on my legs along with a pressure test and after those were done they found out that I had a blood clot in my left leg so I had to start taking coumadin and lovenox. The doctor then wanted to wait a couple more weeks and then have us come back in to see how my leg is doing.

Well that appointment was yesterday and we were totally blindsided to find out that not only do I have to have surgery on my leg but its apparently a pretty big surgery where I have to be readmitted for a couple of days! :( The only good news out of that whole meeting is once I do have the surgery I won't have any more pain in my leg and foot which I am very thankful for. I guess my artery is blocked (once again because of ECMO...do you see a pattern here???) so the doctors have to go in and do an arterial bypass in my leg. That consist of either taking a vein from somewhere else in my body (although I don't have many good ones so I don't know how good an option that is) or using some sort of plastic piece as a fake vein.

All of this we are hoping to get over with rather soon. My mom's FMLA runs out soon and she has to be back to work on Feb. 14th so we are really hopeful that I can go home then too. If not Danny is going to have to take off work and come and stay with me.

Well, I think thats it. I hope everyone has a great weekend! :)

Oh yeah I almost forgot...while I have been here I went to see an audiologist (with my moms insistence!) We went on Thursday and gave them the check and Tuesday I get my hearing aids. I am not to thrilled about the whole idea of having hearing aids at almost 29 yrs old (my bday is Thursday!) but I will let you all know what I think about them when I get them!

Sunday, January 2, 2011

One Month Anniversary!!

Today, I have had my wonderful new lungs for an entire month! And while nothing about this transplant has gone easy (but what with me ever does?) I am thankful everyday to be able to sit here and blog to you all, or hang out with my family all while being on no oxygen and not fighting to breath.

Friday was the first day that I ventured out of the apartment/hospital radius and went to the mall. Boy was it nice to not have to lug O2 around with me! :)

The only thing that still really hurts me is my foot and I plan on bringing that up with my doctor tomorrow morning because something has to give. It hurts so bad its holding me back from fully enjoying my new breathers and thats not a good thing....

In case some of you are scratching your head wondering why my foot hurts when I had a lung transplant I will tell you! Before my surgery I was put on an ECMO machine (I was REALLY sick) this gave me a big cut on my thigh where they attached the tubes. This caused there to be no blood flow to my left leg for 24 hrs. So fast forward to after my surgery and now I have horrible pain in my foot!

Other than the painful foot I had a wonderful Christmas with my family and a good New Years too. I can't wait to see what 2011 brings my way!