Up The Farway Tree

Quarantine is over!

To get straight to the point, it was all good results and I got the all clear today from the bronchoscopy today :-)

We travelled down on Sunday night and were up early for clinic at 7.30am yesterday. I had bloods taken, weight (up a couple of kilos), oxygen sats (99%), chest x-ray and lung function. The lady in lung function told me the results were exactly the same as last time, but the consultant today said they were up at FEV1 of 2.42 L (which I calculate to be roughly 82-83% ish). It was 79% at clinic four weeks ago. After all the tests I had my bronchoscopy - due to the drugs given I don't remember much about it although I have that feeling that I might have been a bit 'difficult'! Looking at my drug chart afterwards (as you do) I see I was given enough sedation to floor a small horse (13mg midazolam for medic friends). Needless to say I slept for the next hour but apart from a bit of a sore throat was totally fine when I woke up. I was of course immediately bored and seeing it was a sunny day decided to chance my luck and ask to go outside. Once the nurse was happy I had eaten and drank something, she said that would be ok. Pushing my luck further I asked if I could go over to mums friends for a couple of hours - she paused for thought and then agreed. At the point mum suggested I just have dinner at Pat's and come back later that night the nurse finally put her foot down and said I had to be back for 5.45pm to get my dinner haha! Well, if you don't ask...

It was great to escape for a couple of hours and I was able to sit out in the sunshine ...and to have my much needed cup of coffee since I really can't drink hospital stuff. We headed back for dinner - a tuna sandwich, so I shouldn't have bothered! Mum was able to stay until visiting finished at 8pm but then had to leave because I was on a 6 bedded bay, so no room for bending the visiting rules. Although feeling anxious about the bronchoscopy results I did manage to sleep and thankfully my room buddies were all very quiet this time.

First thing this morning I had to go over to another hospital to get the nasogastric tube placed for this reflux study. It's a bit uncomfortable because my throat is sore, but not too bad. He said that I did show reflux on the first test I had so it will be interesting to see if this has changed. I have had more symptoms so suspect I will still show reflux on this test, but what the implications of this are I am not sure - I am already on maximum drug therapy but I doubt it's bad enough to warrant surgery. I get the test done again at my 6 month bronchoscopy and then he will write a report for the transplant team, so I will discuss it with them at that time.

After getting the NG tube in, we headed down to clinic at 10am. An then waited. And waited. And waited...until I was finally taken at 12pm. I was the last patient to be seen and had totally convinced myself that this was because it was bad news and he had to allow extra time or something. Talk about being a drama queen. I was placing bets with mum about whether I had rejection - I was nearly convinced that I did and was bracing myself for another inpatient stay. However, I have never been so glad to be wrong! The biopsy did show stage one rejection, but this is common and does NOT require treatment. I have to stay on the same dose of steroids (10mg) but he actually reduced one of my anti-rejection drugs (I suspect the blood level must have come back on the high side). I took this as an indication that he wasn't at all concerned - and he certainly didn't seem to be. He felt that I was doing really well and was pleased that both my weight and lung function were up.

He also crossed off a few drugs from my long list (magnesium, anti virals and mouthwash, which was to prevent any gum infection from immunosuppression). I was pleased about the magnesium as I was 12 tabs a day and had to crush them and dilute with water as they taste like a piece of chalk. He also considered stopping my nebulised antibiotics but in light of my sinus problems it's safer to stay on these to try and prevent reinfection of lungs. Also some fantastic news is that I am allowed to drive again..no stopping me now :-) Since it was the big chief Professor I did ask about the fast heart rate again...he thought about it for a while before announcing "The answer is I don't know why its fast, there is no obvious reason but we aren't going to do anything about it anyway." Fair enough. To be honest I'm happy enough with that, as long as there is no reason to worry or anything that should be done.

Overall, I have never been so relieved and I was a very smiley Jac. I think I had also been worrying about the humeral rejection that was mentioned (then discounted) the last time - I just wondered if that was going to rear its head again. Thankfully not. So the plan now is another checkup in 4 weeks, and the next bronchoscopy in another 3 months to mark the 6 month stage.

Needless to say some celebration was required and what better way than to visit the shops!! We went with Pat to an outlet which sells branded wear at discounted prices. Somehow another pair of shoes managed to find their way to the checkout (although to be fair I had been given some money to buy a treat, so Andrew need not lose any sleep). Everyone must think all I ever do is shop....it's honestly not true. Not sure if anyone will believe me though.

Tomorrow morning I get the NG tube back out and then we can head back home. I'm so glad I am going home with good news this time :-)