A bumpy road taken

This week has been a bit rougher than anticipated. The first day was long and tiring but everything went well. They had me do another full pulmonary function test. This tells them all about the performance capabilities of my lungs. Volume, how much I can blow out in one second and a couple other things. I got everywhere from 25% to 36%, which is well within transplant range. The rest of the day was a visit with the same doctor I saw on my first visit, a CT scan of the chest, abdomen, and pelvic region. They also scanned my diaphragm to make sure that it was working properly to withstand a transplant. That’s pretty much the highlights of that day. Also I might add that Dr. Snyder had a much better attitude this time after looking at all the medical records that had been sent to her from my oncology doctors in Winston Salem that have been seeing me since 2002 and did my stem-cell transplant when I had Leukemia. She laughed and said she was surprised it did not break their fax machine. Said it was very helpful information. It was 150 pages long. Hey, she said to send my records. You get what you ask for.  Ha ha.

That night I got the norovirus. Most likely picked it up in the hospital. I was running to the bathroom every 15 minutes. This could not have come at a worse time. I had a heart cath scheduled for the next morning at 7am. That night felt like it was 50 hours long. There is no worse feeling than a stomach virus. The Raleigh/Durham area had a big outbreak and there were signs all over the hospital that talked about it. Come 6am that morning I had stopped my rushing to the bathroom but was so weak and dehydrated that the heart cath was out of the question. I stayed in bed and drank Gatorade and chewed ice to start the rehydration process.

Thursday morning came and things looked much better. I had an MRI at 7am and then a kidney filtering test at 9am. This all went fine but by the time we left at 1:00pm I was worn out and had been for about an hour and a half. Still pretty weak from that bug. At least it got done though. We were able to get the heart cath that I missed rescheduled for Friday at 7am. This way we would not have to come back in a week or two just for one test. We were able to keep our hotel room for one more night and not have to move so that worked out too.

So that’s how the week has gone. It has been a bit rough thanks to that virus but I am over it now with the exception of still feeling a little weak. I have not been posting updates due to feeling so bad but this pretty much sums it all up. Thanks to everyone checking in and the positive comments and countless prayers.  I am posting this and then going back to my room to get ready for bed. We have to get up awful early to get to that heart cath tomorrow and those who know me know that I don’t do mornings well. I run into walls and don’t make ANY big decisions for my safety and the safety of others. Ha ha. Good night all.