Going Home

I'm finally escaping Club Med tomorrow (Wed) after 14 very long and rough days. I do feel a lot better and are ready to get back into my daily routine. I'm still very tired and weak. It will take me awhile to recover from that. This infection really knocked me down, and it's going to take some time to get back to my usual self. I have a lot of weight gaining to do as well. I've lost so much weight between the gallbladder surgery and being sick. I'm "sick and tired" of being sick and didn't like starting off the new year in the hospital. Hopefully I will remain healthy and feeling good for a very LONG while before getting sick again.

I was really frustrated that I was not able to get out on home IV antibiotics so I could attend classes today. The doctor wanted me to stay the full 14 days. I will return to transplant clinic in 2 weeks, unless I need to go before. My transplant coordinator made it clear that I really need to rest and take it easy as much as possible at home. My plan right now is to attend my physiology lecture class Thursday afternoon. And then the following Tuesday, begin attending all 3 classes. I'm looking forward to resting and just being at home this weekend AND sleeping in my own bed.

My stomach is continuing to misbehave. I do feel like the distention is some better, and some of the nurses agree as well. I've had a Lortab for pain tonight and trying to tolerate it without any other pain meds. They really don't want to give me any, which I understand. And once I'm home, I won't be able to get the good, strong, narcotic IV Dilaudid. So hopefully tonight will be a good night. I've been pretty nauseous today and yesterday, so I'm taking the phenegren pretty regularly. Thankfully, I have phenegren at home I can take. The docs still feel like the cause of this is due to all of the antibiotics I've been on the last month or so (a whole lot). So I'm expecting the stomach distension and pain to resolve once the antibiotics get out of my system.

The pneumonia has cleared up on the xray. My heart rate is still pretty high (150 with exertion, walking, etc.). It is a little better at rest, hanging around 100. I know that will get better once I'm moving around more. Thank you to all of you for your prayers and good thoughts these last few weeks. I will update tomorrow when I get home or sometime soon thereafter. I hope everyone is having a great week.

P.S. I did have pneumonia this admission, and it was showing up on xray. I'm not sure why I wasn't notified of that upon admission and could have sworn that he said my xray was fine. But evidently it did show some lower lobe pneumonia. The bacteria causing the pneumonia was Pseudomonas.