Wednesday's Spin

This morning Bob had his 4th weekly heart biopsy. While he was still in the cardiac catheterization lab, his heart transplant surgeon came by to check on him, and made the decision along with the rest of his team to admit Bob to the hospital again. We have been telling them about his increasing unsteadiness and muscle weakness this week, and they feel think that he is suffering from muscle loss due to the steroids he's been on to prevent organ rejection. He is in need of some intense physical therapy, and to have his meds adjusted. We have been trying to work the PT appointments by the home health nurse into our schedule for 2 weeks, and other appointments have continually interferred. So now he will get focused attention along with efforts to turn the muscle deterioration process around. We are both relieved to have this opportunity - it has gotten really difficult this week to get him to and from the car and to appointments, never mind just getting from bed to getting dressed and around the apartment safely.

We have been assured by all the transplant team members that this week's challenges are just bumps in the road, not major obstacles to recovery. Everyone is very committed to getting a favorite patient back in tip-top shape. He was told again what excellent new organs he has, and they want him to be making the most of them by being active as soon as possible. We are in full agreement with this goal!

During this hospital stay the kidney team will take yet another look at his leaky incision to see if something new can be done to speed the healing process. We are hoping the Urology consult can take place in the hospital instead of waiting for a clinic appointment. We will be pushing to accomplish as much as possible while he is "captive" on the 10th floor again, so that his second month of recovery starts to go in a more positive direction. We know from everyone, including other transplant recipients we've met, that the first 6 months are the hardest and then things should smooth out for a while after that. We also know from our TRIO friends that there are no guarantees at any point that life will be perfect, and we are keeping that in mind also....still grateful he has this second chance at life without the frequent heart attacks and time-consuming dialysis treatments.