Pat and I had our six month checkup yesterday and our partners, Steve and Janis, had theirs on July 13th. They come a much longer way than we do to get to the UW Medical Center, so we drove in and met them for lunch last Thursday. It's so gratifying to get to "see" my former kidney in a healthy, grateful recipient. We had a nice lunch and caught up on all the details.
Our checkups went well, Pat has to have labs once a week for awhile to follow up on a white cell problem that hasn't been fully managed yet. He apparently has a pretty strong immune system and while that is usually good, in this case, it can cause problems when the anti-rejection medication is too high in an effort to keep viruses, etc. at bay and pushes his white count so low that he's unable to fight off any stray germ and that's dangerous. The chemistry and balancing act is amazingly sophisticated and I wonder how people who received transplants years ago managed.
Anyway, he is doing well and the good news is that he got permission for us to travel out of the country this fall! So planning will be full steam ahead now. We already purchased airfare and plan to fly to Iceland in mid-September, stay there three days and then continue to Glasgow. We don't have exact plans made yet but will probably stay in Scotland a week or so, definitely visiting Edinburgh and then take the train down into England. We'll spend the rest of the month visiting areas of England that we haven't been to before, probably the lake district, Cornwall, possibly Bath and Oxford and end up in London to fly home in mid-October. It should be a grand time.
My checkup was also fine but, critical person that I am, I managed to convince myself that I'm not where I should be. My creatinine was 1.04, which is actually higher than it was two weeks after surgery. Now this can be due to the exercise that I'm doing, as creatinine is a byproduct of muscle metabolism and intense exercise can increase muscle breakdown. However, I don't know if my slow swimming is intense exercise and I was disappointed in the result. The nurse practitioner who went over the labs, however, was not concerned and informed me that my kidney function was about 77% of previous, when I had two kidneys. I guess that is good news but I was hoping for quicker recovery back to a higher number.
While I'm certainly not a high level athlete, I do expect my body to do what I want it to and to respond quickly and successfully. I know this kidney stuff is somewhat out of my control except for the requirement that I follow the dietary, fluid intake, and medication restrictions that I've been given. I feel fine, can pretty much do whatever I want to, and enabled another human being to live a healthy life. Not bad for a 64 year old "old lady!"
I finished some more spinning: 203 yards of Organic Wool from Southern Cross Fibre. It came out really nicely.
I also finished the Russell Street Shawl, although the ends aren't all woven in yet. I wanted to lay it out and see how I liked it, as I really miscalculated the yardage I would need for my main color and ran out way before the end. I decided to take some more scraps and make a few larger stripes and I really like how it looks. Hooray for improvisation!
I also made some raspberry freezer jam. Yum!
Our checkups went well, Pat has to have labs once a week for awhile to follow up on a white cell problem that hasn't been fully managed yet. He apparently has a pretty strong immune system and while that is usually good, in this case, it can cause problems when the anti-rejection medication is too high in an effort to keep viruses, etc. at bay and pushes his white count so low that he's unable to fight off any stray germ and that's dangerous. The chemistry and balancing act is amazingly sophisticated and I wonder how people who received transplants years ago managed.
Anyway, he is doing well and the good news is that he got permission for us to travel out of the country this fall! So planning will be full steam ahead now. We already purchased airfare and plan to fly to Iceland in mid-September, stay there three days and then continue to Glasgow. We don't have exact plans made yet but will probably stay in Scotland a week or so, definitely visiting Edinburgh and then take the train down into England. We'll spend the rest of the month visiting areas of England that we haven't been to before, probably the lake district, Cornwall, possibly Bath and Oxford and end up in London to fly home in mid-October. It should be a grand time.
My checkup was also fine but, critical person that I am, I managed to convince myself that I'm not where I should be. My creatinine was 1.04, which is actually higher than it was two weeks after surgery. Now this can be due to the exercise that I'm doing, as creatinine is a byproduct of muscle metabolism and intense exercise can increase muscle breakdown. However, I don't know if my slow swimming is intense exercise and I was disappointed in the result. The nurse practitioner who went over the labs, however, was not concerned and informed me that my kidney function was about 77% of previous, when I had two kidneys. I guess that is good news but I was hoping for quicker recovery back to a higher number.
While I'm certainly not a high level athlete, I do expect my body to do what I want it to and to respond quickly and successfully. I know this kidney stuff is somewhat out of my control except for the requirement that I follow the dietary, fluid intake, and medication restrictions that I've been given. I feel fine, can pretty much do whatever I want to, and enabled another human being to live a healthy life. Not bad for a 64 year old "old lady!"
I finished some more spinning: 203 yards of Organic Wool from Southern Cross Fibre. It came out really nicely.
I also finished the Russell Street Shawl, although the ends aren't all woven in yet. I wanted to lay it out and see how I liked it, as I really miscalculated the yardage I would need for my main color and ran out way before the end. I decided to take some more scraps and make a few larger stripes and I really like how it looks. Hooray for improvisation!
I also made some raspberry freezer jam. Yum!
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