Amy accompanied me to Toronto as Isaiah was busy working. We arrived late Sunday night to realize that we packed sweaters for nothing. We jumped on a streetcar to our cute B&B and crashed out.
Monday morning started off bright and early with bloodwork at 730. I finally managed to get some food around 9 while waiting for my CT-scan. Amy kept running back and forth to the cafeteria to bring food as the day went on. It was exhausting even though I was mostly just sitting around or standing in lines.
Bloodwork: Taken with one poke! It's such a rarity when that happens that it makes me oddly excited. Less pain for me! The lab results looked good, the doctor increased one of my antirejection meds slightly. But I'm happy with the change as it now means that I can take only two 5mg pills instead of one 5mg, four 1mg, and one 0.5mg. Less pills is always better. I may be able to stop some of my supplements and my steroid levels may be decreased. The steroid levels decreasing would be fantastic as it raises my blood sugar levels and they were a bit high. I would rather lower the levels than take more insulin.
Pfts: After bloodwork, I rushed off to pfts. They took forever as I had do the weird one with the inflated bag which takes 5 minutes to fill. It also felt like forever as I was starving (I had to fast for the bloodwork). They were down a bit which freaked me out a bit but in clinic they didn't seem that concerned about it. The number was down from my Amherst tests but was the same from my last Toronto levels. The doctor decided the change was because I was using a different machine which doesn't make much sense to me but whatever. My levels have been creeping back up on my home machine so I didn't think it was worth pushing the issue.
CT Scan and X-ray: I waited in line for CT while Amy rushed off to get food. The scans themselves went fine. It's all just holding your breath while being surrounded by radiation. The results of both were fine, the CT showed some scarring in my lungs which is probably from everything that happened immediately post-transplant but wasn't concerning.
Walk Test: I was then scheduled for my walk test. I recognized a few people in the physio room who had gotten their transplant since I left. Yay for them! My walk test was up 12m from 3 months ago. I was hoping that it would be higher but seeing as my right leg starting cramping about the 4 minute mark, I'm not complaining. I guess that's what happens when I spend the week before a walk test doing a ton of physical activities. My blood pressure spike afterward to scary levels but since it soon dropped back to normal, the physiotherapist was only mildly concerned.
Clinic: Despite the two hour wait, clinic was fine. Everything was reviewed and the doctor decided not to make a decision about my persistent weird cough until after the results came back from the bronchoscopy. He said that he thinks I need a new antibiotic but wanted to hold off until he knew which one would work best for whatever was growing in my lungs.
Bronch: Tuesday was my bronchoscopy. I arrived in plenty of time and flew through all the prep work. And after gargling the freezing crap, doing the lung-freezing aerosol mask, it all screeched to a halt. Previous times, the doctor was waiting anxiously at the door for the mask to finish but something must've been running late and by the time they came to get me a half hour later, it felt as though all the freezing had worn off.
Thankfully, once I was wheeled off to the little procedure room, I got loads of more freezing spray. I asked to be as well sedated as the previous bronch which had gone well and while the nurse said "that's a lot!," the doctor agreed. Except this time, I woke up before they were done and started to panic. The 'choking and dying' feeling does that to me every time. I heard the nurse ask if she should give me more sedation but the doctor said that there was no point as they were almost done.
I kept freaking out even though they kept trying to reassure me but saying 'you're ok' isn't exactly comforting. They must've given me something or I passed out in a panic as I woke up next in the recovery room. After the 'make sure you don't have oxygen outside your lungs' x-ray, I was sent on my merry way with Amy being paranoid that I was about to pass out on her at any second. They didn't tell me anything except the typical 'don't eat for awhile and watch for a fever' lecture. I won't get any of the results until next week so fingers crossed that it all comes out negative.
Toronto: Toronto was humid and sticky but still as great as ever. We didn't do anything specific but we made it to the Kesington Market to buy some cheese, wandered around the fashion district, and saw lots of tacky stuff in Chinatown. We met up with my cousin and pottery friend for some yummy meals. I miss the city a bit but I'm very glad that I wasn't there for the summer as the heat was quite oppressive. I am much happier without a film of sweat on me at all times.
That's about it for the very long summation of the two testing days in Toronto. I'll head back in three months for my yearly assessment!
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| Chinatown! |
1 comment:
Two days of nastiness but you made it through. Good for you! I'm sure that just being back in the Maritimes will speed the healing and recovery.
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