On the road again

To recovery, that is! It's a road I've traveled before but this road has had quite a few more bumps and ditches and roadblocks than before and I'm sure I've got a lot more bumps, ditches and roadblocks ahead before things smooth out but, I am moving forward and I am getting (dare I say it!) better.

Every day, I'm noticing improvement and when I sit still and not move for five or ten minutes and my stomach stops hurting (or after a shot of morphine!!) I can feel a difference in my body. I can tell things are different, something is working right, I'm.... "normal" again.

But then I move my leg or I laugh at TLC's "What Not To Wear" and then it hurts and I have to readjust and position my body so I'm more comfortable and wait until it stops hurting again. And that snaps me back to reality that I've still got a long way go.

I am finally out of the hospital and back at the Ronald McDonald House chilling out and trying to stay calm and keep comfortable. I'll probably be up here a while for medication adjustments and in case I have any episode of rejection, they can catch it fast and stop it before I lose my new kidney.

I am on TONS of medications and a blood thinner injection once a day thanks to the clot I had waiting in the left side of my neck from my old hemo-dialysis catheter. By the way, the clot is breaking up, slowly but surely, and my left arm and leg is only slightly swollen. I don't know how long I'm gonna have to be on all the medications but I'm supposed to be on the injections for three months! Have I mentioned how much I hate (hate, hate, HATE!) shots? I hate shots. I will be able to taper off some of the medications over a couple months time until I get to around 3-5 different anti-rejection meds that I will be on for the rest of my new kidney's life (which, I hope, means the rest of my life!)

I had an appointment today and I wore my lovely (NOT!) yellow mask and got a lot of funny looks from a couple of people. When you sit in the transplant center, everyone is talking about transplants and you quickly realize that quite a few people there have had fairly recent transplants and (shock and horror!) they are NOT wearing a MASK! HELLO!? This might sound very harsh but if you don't care about your health, then don't even bother going to the hospital. If you're gonna get a transplant but you aren't going to wear your mask, take your medications, manage your weight and control your diet than you shouldn't be allowed to get one and all possible donors should be discouraged from giving to you. Ok, rant is over but I'll probably write more about that later.

I'll probably have another appointment Friday or next week on Tuesday. Otherwise, not a whole lot is going to happen so I'll pretty much just be hanging out in my room and wearing my mask when I have visitors and watching lots of TV and movies.

In other news... when we came back to the RMH, the house manager stopped us and told us that tomorrow there will be some kind of news crew here interviewing the staff and some off the people that stay here and the house manager asked me and my mom if we were interested in being interviewed. Me and my mom were both more than willing to be interviewed and to help the RMH in this way. It's exciting and I hope it works out to be able to do it. It will be something fun to look forward too! I'll write more about it tomorrow.

And... other than just being very sore, and trying to remember no one is coming in with needles or scalpels to cut stitches and pull drains or make me walk down the never-ending hallway, gritting my teeth because I feel like my stomach is splitting open. My legs aren't shaking so much anymore because I'm not feeling absolutely terrified of more pain and more trauma to my already battered body. Emotionally, I'm not feeling so freaked out, insecure, stressed, discouraged, frustrated, angry... whatever!

I'm on the road to recovery. It's a long road, a hard, bumpy road, with a lot of twists and turns and ups and downs. But I am recovering and I am getting... B.E.T.T.E.R.