Life goes on!

Another hospital stay and once again I have lived to tell about it. This was, unfortunately, a little bit of a more "traumatic" (versus less traumatic meaning less "bad" things happened causing less bad memories and such) but that was mostly because of my tonsils swelling up and making it really hard and painful to swallow and eat and talk. (if you know me, then you know I LOVE talking) But it was a short visit, which I'm very glad for.

What happened was that I had somehow completely wiped out my white blood cells (WBC's) and had absolutely no neutropenic cells (no idea if I spelled that right but whatever) to fight off infection. One of the doctors told me that they usually don't see that except with chemotherapy patients and even then, the levels are usually just low. Somehow, as a result of the anti-rejection meds that I have to take, my body was able to not only get dangerously low in WBC's but also completely wipe out my neutropenic WBC's (or, as I was told, the body's "soldiers" that protect you from germs). I've got real skills, people.
:-p

They called it a neutropenic fever and I was classified as a medical emergency which meant wearing a mask in the ER and all the nurses/doctors wearing gloves, a gown and a mask whenever they came into my room (making me feel like an alien or something) until they made sure that I wasn't contagious and that my WBC level had come up enough so that I would be protected from their germs. 

Apparently this has been going on for quite a while because a neutropenia deficiency causes mouth sore/ulcers and that explains why I've been dealing with them (the mouth sores) off and on for so long. Within a couple days of IV antibiotics (blech!) the mouth sores were completely gone and the swelling in the back of my throat (mostly tonsils) went down and I could swallow and breath normally again.

I had a doctor's appointment yesterday to check my kidney function because I was at risk of rejection because of the infection I had. Everything is looking good so far and the transplant center wants to see me again in two weeks to make sure that everything stays that way and continues to keep getting better. They do think I have colitis and recommended that I see a GI Specialist to make sure that my stomach/digestive tract is doing alright. My mom is pretty sure that the adjustment of my medications is going to help so we're gonna wait on seeing another doctor for right now to see if the problem my stomach's having will fix itself.

On a happier note, I have great plans for this weekend that I'm totally looking forward to (I don't look forward to very much these days, so this is really big for me!) I'm going to be in Dallas tomorrow and Saturday (my younger brothers have a Teen Court competition) and I'll get to hang out with a good friend that I haven't seen in a while. It's really a God-thing because this is one weekend where she isn't super busy and has some time to hang out with me so I am super excited and totally can't wait for tomorrow. :-D

I also just saw the movie Tangled and it is now my new second favorite movie next to Alice in Wonderland. Isn't Rapunzel cute? If you're wanting to watch a fun, cute movie that's family friendly then this would be the one. It might get a tad intense for really little kids or kids that are really sensitive (like I was!) but I loved it and had such a fun time watching it with my mom.

And that's all for now. Sorry for not updating sooner. Everything seems to be so up and down with me (not just my health) and I'm on an "up-swing" right now so I am taking advantage of that and letting y'all know how I'm doing. :-)