Cold

I'm guessing you read the title of this post prior to actually reading the post itself. If so, you may be wondering how I could be cold, in Dallas, in June. Well, I'm not! In fact, for the most part, it's pretty warm. The problem I'm having is "a cold." That's right, I only managed to go 17 months after my kidney transplant before I managed to get sick.

I woke up the last week of May on a Tuesday with a runny nose and a slightly sore throat. I didn't have fever or any other problems, so I was guessing that one of the many things I'm allergic to (see previous post for details) had attacked me in my sleep (that, or Jenny did). By Friday, I had started coughing and producing some of that lovely yellow phlegm that everyone enjoys so much. At that point, I decided it was not just allergies, so I quit taking Benadryl, started taking Mucinex, and called my family doctor for an appointment. I saw her the next Monday, and she gave me an antibiotic and said to try that for ten days. I kept taking the Mucinex (to get stuff out of my chest) and the antibiotic (to kill anything that might try to live in my lungs) for the ten days. That ended last Wednesday, and I was coughing still. I called the nephrologist on Friday (yesterday) and came in for a chest x-ray. Everything is fine in the x-ray, but he wants me to get some blood work on Monday. He also prescribed a cough syrup with codeine to help me. I started taking that today, Saturday, and I think it helps a little.

Wow, that was a long paragraph. This one will be short, to help balance.

That was much better. Let's see, I also saw my cardiologist this week for my regular six-month check-up. She did an echo cardiogram, and said that my mitral valve prolapse is still moderately severe (no change since last time). She said that since I had no change, I would not need an echo in six months, but that I should still come back at that time to see her again. She said she would only do another echo earlier if I had strange trouble breathing.

She also told me that a friend of mine that I met while on dialysis is currently seeing her for her pre-transplant cardiac workup. As a doctor, she did not actually mention this lady's name, but from her description, I was able to figure out who she was referencing. Apparently, this unnamed patient had mentioned that I had a blog and that I had mentioned my cardiologist on it. So, here I am, mentioning her again. I assured her that I've never said anything bad about her, mostly because I really like her and think she does a great job. In fact, if anyone were to ever ask me for a doctor to go see, I'd recommend her. She's very knowledgeable, and always seems to remember at least one non-medical thing that we talked about at our last appointment.

You might think that this isn't special, but let me give you my perspective on things. I saw the nephrologist at dialysis every week, and he barely had time to say hello before he was at the next patient. There was no conversation, and no feeling that he cared how I was doing. Yet, my cardiologist, who I see only once every six months, is able to remember things that I told her that are not medically-related, in addition to being quite friendly and seems to care about my health.

So, long post - but I'm supposed to keep taking the cough suppressant until Friday. If I am still coughing at that time, I have to call the transplant nephrologist back and get seen again. Hopefully it won't be a problem that long.

And, Jenny tells me to have everyone look at the links on the right-hand side of the page. I put one up, today, that links to my adoption story blog. Read it if you like. Or don't, I can't make you (or stop you).

Have a great weekend!!