Tag Archives: transplant

Health update and anniversary

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As some of you may or may not know, on July 29th, 2009, I went into surgery to receive a kidney which my awesome sister was willing to donate. Well, it’s coming on the 2nd year anniversary, and I’m doing pretty good. I think a shout out goes to my sister. She’s pretty damn amazing to be willing to give me her kidney.

I’m not 100%, but I’ve still got so many other things that are wrong with me, not all of them have to do with my brain either! But I’m hanging in there.

I think a majority of my recovery has to be credited to my awesome wife, Meesh. I think without her, I’d still be in bed all day, feeling even more sorry for myself than now. I think she underestimates herself as my primary caregiver. She thinks she doesn’t do anything, but just being there has done quite a lot for me.

As for the rest of what’s going on, the pain comes and goes. I suppose you could probably call my case a mild case of Fibromyalgia, just to get a sense of what Neuropathy means. But I think anyone who has FM will tell you, there’s no such thing as a mild case. You either got it or you don’t. It just hurts that much. In my case I guess I’ve got it better in terms of pain. But it does hurt. I mean there are days when I feel like I want to die. Those are the bad days. The good days are the days where the pain is a 2 or 3 out of 10. There is never a time when I don’t feel pain. Never.

Along with the pain, when I eat, I sweat. I mean literally. I don’t sweat because it’s hot, or because I’m eating spicy food, but because my brain is too confused from all the damage it’s gotten and when I eat food, instead of feeling like “wow, this is the best food I’ve ever eaten”, I sweat. I have accepted it. Although I have to say with the warmer temperatures, it seems worse now.

So as not to sound like a total whiner, I won’t Really talk about all the other stupid complications I’ve got going. If you’re online and feeling bored, you can always ask me about it, and I’m sure I’ll tell you all about it. Because it’s all about me, you know. :P

Dealing with “normal” life

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Dealing with post transplant has been surprisingly easy for me. This is not to say it’s been easy on Meesh. Unfortunately, she’s had to deal with more than she should mainly because I either cannot or should not do it. She lifts all the heavy things, she cleans the litter box, she does all the food shopping, and well you get the idea. She does it all. And I’m so thankful to have been blessed with such an awesome support group. My parents and my sister have been tremendous help too.

Working has definitely been different for me. Before, I was lucky if I could work a half of a day without getting exhausted. Now I’m actually able to work a 9 hour day without even thinking about it. Having this transplant has been the miracle of my life, and I have everyone to thank for it, especially my sister.

Dealing with my diabetes has been a chore however. The medicine I’m taking makes it tough. I suppose I might just throw caution to the wind and just take my medicine and leave it at that but how disrespectful is that? Not only to me but to my sister? So I am working as hard as possible to keep healthy and keep my sugars in check. If that means sticking myself about 10 times a day so be it. It’s a small sacrifice to stay alive.

A word of caution to those diabetics that aren’t taking care of themselves: it’s Really not as bad as you think. If I could do it all over again I would have bit the bullet and did all my glucose checks and taken my insulin.

Mother's Day

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So Mother’s Day is upcoming. What do you have planned? My mom is having one of her friend’s visit, so she’ll be up in Vancouver visiting over the weekend. So we’re celebrating it early for her, and we’re going out to dinner tomorrow. Consequently, it looks like we’re taking Meesh’s mom out to the same restaurant, for lunch the next day! How funny. That place must be real popular with mom’s. It certainly is popular with ours!

Other than that, it looks like nothing else is planned. Just spending time with them is always good.

In other news, my sister is coming to visit, mainly because she’s got a bunch of tests to do at University of Washington for the kidney workup. Basically they need to verify and make sure that she’s a match to me and that she’s in perfect health to give me her kidney. Sounds like it’s a jam packed tiring day. We’re planning of spending the whole day in Seattle, should be a lot of fun. Sounds like a lot of sitting around and waiting though.