Tuesday, January 16, 2007

Tuesday Morning

We just completed our post-transplant meeting. The nurse went over all of our medications with us to tell us what to take and when to take them. She talked about all of our post-transplant life changes that we will be dealing with, as well.

For starters, we should be released either today or tomorrow, depending on how quickly everything can get completed today. We begin by going to the clinic every Monday, Wednesday, and Friday for the next two weeks. We have a lab appointment where they check all of our blood levels, and then a clinic appointment where they check our medications and we meet with the doctor to make sure everything is still going well.

I have 10 medications on my list as of today. Once we see the doctor, we will have to ask about all of my old medications and see which of those I will need to continue taking and what doses or schedules I will need with those. They gave us a spreadsheet to track when we take all of our medications, and also another sheet to mark weights, temperatures, and blood pressures. I am sure I will be updating those sheets into one sheet on the computer once I get home to a printer.

For now, we are probably going to avoid going to too many public places until we are finished with our two weeks of constant clinic visits. Once that is completed, we will ask about going to church and possibly about working from home. We will also have to check about Jenny's job working with children and find out what precautions that she will need to start taking.

Also included in my folder of post-transplant goodies is a guide to writing a letter to the donor family. I will have to read through that when I get home to write a "good" letter to the family to thank them for their gift. I don't want to break any protocols, so I will make sure to follow all of the directions.

They told us not to go home until we had received a 30-day supply of all of our new medications. I know that might delay us from going home, but we will see.

I will try to make another update today if I find out more. Time for lunch!


By the way, I was asked a comment about eating yogurt. During dialysis, you cannot have a high dairy intake because dairy products are high in phosphorus, which builds up in your blood during dialysis. Now that I have a normal kidney again, I can have all of the phosphorus-laden foods that I know and love. Thanks for the comments, hbk.

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