Dear Faithful Readers
We felt like enough has transpired in the last two months to warrant a revival of the Transplant Tribune or TT as we say in in the biz. As you can see this is no longer the Kidney Chronicles (KC) as I was turned down back in April by the kidney folks due to the condition of my heart. At that time my cardiologist who is with the heart-lung transplant program recommended I switch to peritoneal dialysis instead of the hemodialysis I am now on. This requires the surgical insertion of a catheter in the abdomen and a 7 day-a-week treatment at home during the night. This is known to be gentler on the cardiac condition than going to the center three times a week for 3 1/2 hours at a throw.
In May we arranged dialysis in Florida to enable us to visit Don and Diana and David as well our dear Aunt Mitzi. Unfortunately our plans changed when I got out of bed too fast one night and passed out from low blood pressure. I fell on the floor, twisted my ankle thereby breaking my fibula just below the knee. We happened to be at UCSF all the next day and I hobbled around not knowing it was broken until my dear wife and Dr. Rame convinced me to brave the evils of the UCSF Emergency Room. After nine joyous hours captive there I was released at 2:00 AM in a splint. I returned to orthopedics at the Mt. Zion campus the next week to be fully cast to above my knee in a beautiful blue plaster cast. Equipped with a rented wheelchair and a wonderful wife I have been generally getting around OK until Friday when the second (purple) cast was removed and replaced with an air cast also known as a boot. This will be worn to sort of walk for another six weeks. Pretty long but
a lot better than 7 weeks in a cast rolling round in a wheelchair.
So by now if you are still awake you are wondering why this is called the Transplant Tribune (TT) and not the Fracture Follies (FF). That is because the great minds of the heart and lung department decided I would again be a candidate for a heart-kidney transplant if certain conditions are met. These mainly involve applying for a temporary exception to move me to a higher classification on the list to be eligible for better organs sooner. This action has been pretty well accepted by the medical gurus in heart-lung so I am now embarked on another series of studies and tests to assure my ability to undergo this procedure successfully. We hope once again that this time is the charm and a good result can be achieved.
I would like to thank all those that helped cart me around to various places while in the wheelchair even those that seemed to get a charge out of doing wheelies with me in the chair. Especially appreciated are the Caples guys and my son Andrew who constructed a very nifty ramp to enable me to enter and exit our house. And of course my dearest Cheryl who has done mostly everything for the last 7 weeks.
Enough reading already. I hope everything is OK in your worlds and thanks again for all the interest and support.
Robert J. Moss aka Bob Moss aka Irv Moss aka Bobby Moss
