Up The Farway Tree

Rejection

Well as you can guess from the title my bronchoscopy wasn't quite as positive as I had hoped for. Despite oxygen saturations of 100% and my lung function going up to 2.14 litres (75%) the lung biopsies have shown evidence of acute rejection. There are 4 stages of rejection, with 1 being mild and needing no or little treatment and 4 being very severe. I am between stage 2 and 3, which means it's at a moderate level and requires treatment - which is 3 days of IV steroids (for my medic friends that's methylprednisolone 440mg/day) After the 3 days my oral steroids will be back up (to 60mg) and then be gradually reduced by 10mg/week until I am back down to 10mg daily. The consultant was very surprised that I hadn't been feeling unwell and that my lung function was up. I have been a little tired and breathless walking the dog but I had put that down to being unfit and overdoing things. After all I have no idea what normal is and all I knew what that I felt better than I did before the transplant. One positive thing about this is the fact I should feel even better once it has been treated, and my lung function may well go up further. Acute rejection is extremely common in the first year, and especially the first few months, so this is not unusual. It is also very responsive to the steroid treatment so hopefully it will be under control asap.

The only other worrying thing from today was that the biopsy also showed some evidence of humoral rejection, which is a different type of acute rejection involving antibodies (proteins my body has made to attack the new lungs). Apparently this is very uncommon in lung transplants and the treatment would be different to steroids. At this stage however it is only a MAYBE as there are other tests they still need to carry out to confirm or refute this. The consultant feels that in light of how good I am clinically, its entirely possible that further tests will eliminate this. I did ask a lot of questions but the doctor felt there was little point going into all the ins and outs until we know for certain whether I have this. Needless to say I am quite worried about this and although I know I need to wait on the test results, my mind is racing ahead and imagining all sorts of possibilities.

So, I'm back to isolation at the moment as I am being seriously immunosuppressed with the steroids. This does at least mean I have my own room again, as last night I was on bay with 3 other ladies. One was a young girl who couldn't stop vomiting and needed me to press her buzzer for her, there was an old lady who belched all night and wandered to the bathroom with her bum hanging out the back of her gown, and another post-op middle aged lady who appeared to be sipping vodka from her water glass (i kid you not). I put my head phones on and pretended to be very engrossed in my pay to view TV ;-) I suppose it helped pass the time..

Mum is staying down here, as Andrew has to go to work. I felt terrible leaving wee Seb again, and when he saw me packing my suitcase his wee tail went down and he moped about all night. He then tried to bar my exit the next morning by sitting in front of the door and refusing to move. Andrew said he was moping about all day, checking the front door regularly to see if I was back. I think he is ok now though so hopefully he wont be too huffy when I finally get home!

I will update if I hear any more news about the rejection, but I can't imagine I will hear anything soon. Fingers crossed its nothing to worry about and I get home soon and back to enjoying my new life.