Been a while, eh?

Once again, I have been lacking on updates. I have no real excuse other than the fact that I have been working ludicrous hours at work and I never seem to think of adding to this while I am at work. It's a real bitch actually having to do some work, eh? :-)

Anyway, life is going pretty well other than having to work so much. I am actually starting to adjust my schedule so that I get up earlier so that I can actually go to work and get out earlier. It's been surprisingly enjoyable. We'll see how long it lasts.

On the medical front, things have been quite good. Haven't even been in a hospital except for routine tests this year. Nothing unexpected at all. That's also a surprisingly good feeling!

September 11th

Given that I was sitting in Midtown Manhattan when the first tower was hit, had a college friend on one of the planes and knew far too many people who worked in the vicinity (though thankfully, no one in the towers), September 11th has always been a tough day for me. Hell, it took me three years just to be able to go back to Ground Zero and visit.

I find many the things that have been done in the name of "protecting" us from future happenings like this to be more than a little reprehensible and a black mark on the memories of the many people who died as a result of the attack. Hopefully, when Dubya goes away in January 2009, some good sense will be restored to the people in charge and their attitudes towards things like this.

I hope everyone has a decent day and takes a moment to remember the attack and put in a word with their chosen deity that this sort of thing never happens again anywhere.

General update

I've realized I have been slacking here again. I have a good excuse though.

1) I have actually been having a life. In the last month or so, I have been to my girlfriend's twin's birthday party, to Chicago (for the first time, no less) to see the USA Eagles play Munster RFC in a Rugby World Cup tune up match, had my girlfriend, her mother and her kids come up and spend four days running around Minnesota with me.

2) I got a new boss who is essentially rebuilding my department from the ground up. This is not a bad thing, but it certainly is making me do things in ways that take a lot more thought since I am not familiar with them.

3) Just to make my life complete and full of fun, had a friend lapse into a coma. Not just any friend mind you. This is the woman who gave me moral support during all of the kidney transplant stuff. She has suffered from various ailments her entire life and just when it looked like most of the issues had been dealt with, this happens. Life is bloody unfair. Anyway, I have been spending a fair amount of time in the hospital visiting with her.

So that's what's been going on with me. How's everyone else been?

Just in case you were wondering...

I am fine. I was nowhere near the bridge that collapsed in Minneapolis yesterday. In fact, that bridge is the wrong direction for me to go to or from work. The only regular reason I would have to be on that bridge these days is if I were going from my office to a medical appointment, since all of those seem to be in downtown Minneapolis these days!

Thanks to the folks who have already contacted me asking how I am doing. It's good to know you have friends who think about you! :-)

Sorry for the long absence

It's been a while since I've posted and that is mostly because I have been busy as all get out at work and at home. I'll try to be a little more on top of things in the future.

Sad News

I found out that a friend of mine from College has died. I don't know much in the way of details yet, but I expect I will find out that information in the next couple of days.

I don't really know how to deal with this yet. It gives me a whole now prospective on my hospitalization last fall. If my friends and family were feeling anything like what's going on in my head right now, I feel like I should apologize for the next year or so for putting them through that, even though I know I had no control over it. This is the first time I have experienced the death of someone my age that I have known for a long time.

I guess I will post more when I know more.

Things I need to do before going to Jody and Adam's wedding

1) Go to my doctor's appointment on Friday
2) Get to Hair Police for dread maintenance
3) Unpack my old Dell Optiplex and recover the files I need from it
4) Actually finish listening to The City of the Dead radio drama

I'm sure there is more I need to do and I think I will add them to blog entries to keep myself reminded

Oh yeah! 5) Buy Adam and Jody a wedding Gift!!!!!!

I'm amused

the reason I am amused is that I am wearing a t-shirt a friend sent me recently (thanks JWIII) from the show "Spamalot" that says, simply: "I'm not dead yet" , which makes me laugh in a somewhat morbid way.

Weekend plans and comments on health

I talked to the doctor's office a few days ago and it appears that all is well. My creatinine is even edging down a bit to make the news even better.

I've decided it is time to start enjoying life a bit more. I think I am going to break out my bike this weekend and go riding around Lake Calhoun. It's supposed to be nice (unlike last weekend's rain-fest) and I think I could use the outdoor time as well as the exercise. Hopefully, this will be the beginning of regular rides again.

A good weekend

This has been a good weekend, despite having to go to work. I got to have breakfast with a couple of my buddies and it was quite a good time. I managed to get some household chores done, which might be the biggest surprise of all. And I managed to go to MicroCon (a local comic convention) and managed to stay under budget. not by much mind you, but I got some cool stuff and am quite happy with it.

Latest medical news

OK, so I talked to the doctor's office today and it appears that my creatinine is holding steady, which is not a bad thing I guess, but I would have loved to see it go down a bit after the steroid treatment. It looks like there is a lab error on one of my blood tests, so I have to go back and get that done again. Hopefully, it will not turn out to be something that actually requires some sort of treatment.

More fun with drugs

As of right now, it appears that my rejection episode is over. My creatinine level is stable (we'll see if it goes down) and most of my blood tests came back normal. The only thing that is making me a little cranky is that my blood sugar came back at about 350 on Monday, so they put me on something for that. Just what I needed, more drugs. I also found out today that they are upping my Prograf dose, from 4 to 5 mg. Nothing big, but I'd rather take less drugs than more.

I'll be going in on Tuesday for more blood tests, so we shall see how all this goes.

Yay, Steroids!

Well, I'm done with the IV steroids for my rejection episode. I got my last dose today and I have a doctor's appointment tomorrow to follow up on this. I'll post the results from that when I get them, most likely Monday afternoon, maybe Tuesday. There will be a post once I hear from the doctor.

Mild Acute rejection

I got the results from my biopsy yesterday and it appears that there is some rejection going on. I am now getting three days of big doses of steroids to make it go away. I am about to leave for the second dose right now.

I have a checkup on Monday at my doctor's office to see how things are going. Hopefully, I will be all better then. More as I know it.

Kidney Biopsy

I get to go in tomorrow (Thursday) for the biopsy. I also don't get to drive myself. I have been informed that I will not be allowed to drive myself home, so I am assuming there will be some sedation involved. This also means I get to miss an entire day of work. Hopefully, this will be one and done, rather than leading to lots of other visits to establishments staffed by many medical professionals.

I'll let you know how it comesout once I know.

It was too good to last.

It looks like my run of not having to go to the hospital is now over. I just got a call from my doctor telling me that they want to biopsy my kidney to verify that I am not going through a rejection episode. He said that it would be pretty mild even if I am, but that is not something I wanted to hear under any circumstances.

It appears that the creeping creatinine is what has got him worried. I get to go to the hospital later this week to get the biopsy done and see what happens after that. Hopefully, it will not be anything bad, but I'll post when I know more.

Creeping creatinine

According to the latest blood tests, my creatinine has nudged up to 1.8. This is not a big increase, but it does seem to be part of a slight upward trend over the last couple of months. I'll be going back in next week to get it re-tested. I guess we'll see if this is a minor blip or something to be concerned about then.

I would drive 500 Miles...

Well, I went to St. Louis and back with no major problems, mostly because my friend TK was there to help with the driving on the way back! I think I could get to like St. Louis a lot. It seems like a pretty nice town and JM has a great house. We'll see when I get to go down there next. It wont be anytime before the end of April since I am already going out of town at the end of next week and have a wedding in NYC to attend at the end of May. Gonna be a busy travel time over the next couple of months.

Eventful week

Well, last week was far more exciting than I expected it to be. I had to be out the door extra early pretty much every day! I had my IV Iron doses on Monday, Tuesday and Friday, a doctor's appointment for blood tests on Wednesday and an all company meeting on Thursday, all of which started at 8 am at latest. I remember why I always aim for getting in to work at around 9 now: traffic sucks at 7 am way more than it does a 8:15 am. :-)

To finish off the week, I bought a new HD (400 GB!) on Friday, discovered that it was defective during the LAN party I went to Saturday, and then went to my company's "Mid-winter Blues Party" Saturday night. On Sunday, I went to see 300. All in all, quite the fun weekend.

Hopefully this coming week will be a bit more quiet. Of course there is the part where I drive to St. Louis this weekend... :-)

Sitting around again

Well, I got my first IV iron on Thursday. It wasn't too bad. Evidently, my experience with dialysis has prepared my for this well. I was done with the IV in about an hour and I barely noticed it. I guess three years of sitting on my can for three hours, three times a week did me some good! :-)

I have three more sessions next week. I assume it will be as easy as this week's session.

Iron Man!

Looks like I don't get to avoid more needles. I have to get 4 doses of IV Iron starting this Thursday. Oh well, it's not like I haven't gotten lots of needles before. I guess I will survive these!

Before I forget again...

I heard back from the doctor's office and all appears to be well with my labs. I'm a little low on my hemoglobin, but they have been expecting that. I get to have an iron study done, and that will determine if I need to get fed some IV iron. Hopefully not, since as you all know, I hate needles, even now! :-)

I'm healthy!

I've been lax about posting to this blog mostly because nothing seems to be going wrong. The only thing that even raised a slight blip on the medical radar is that my creatinine level has been creeping up a bit, but not enough to cause my doctor to be worried about it.

I just went in for my regular labs today and I should find out the results later today or tomorrow. I'll let you know if anything is amiss.

All appears to be well.

As was pointed out to me last night, I've been a little lax about updating this blog. The reason for that is that everything has been going swimmingly. My white blood cell count is still in a reasonable range after last week's little episode. My blood pressure appears to be under control and even my potassium level is behaving itself. I'm not sure if I can deal with my health actually going right for a while, but we'll see! :-)

Work annoyances

I go through this every time Microsoft releases a new OS. I hate Vista. It is making my life really suck these days. To no one's surprise, MS has released this thing before it was ready for prime time. In the last week, I have had to deal with it in three different languages, two of which I obviously do not speak. I hate Vista.

Immune system issues

I had another episode of my white blood cell count dropping like a brick. I think I need to talk to my doctor about this. While I know that I am going to have a compromised immune system, I don't think I am supposed to have an immune system that yo-yos like this. It seems like I should not have to deal with this. Why is my body reacting to my medication by dropping my white blood cell count so drastically?

On the up side, they treated the drop with a medicine called Neupogen and it restored my WBC to an acceptable level in three days. The only real downside to this is that the drug is only available as an injection. Despite three years of Dialysis and a ridiculously high number of doctor visits and hospitalizations that involved either injections or blood draws, I am still afraid of needles. Having to give myself a shot, even for only three days, was about as close to my own personal hell as I ever want to get. I'd hate to think of what my life would be like if I ever developed diabetes...

Work is rolling along just fine

Well, it looks like I am going to be back up to full time at work even earlier than I thought. I've been putting in full days since last thursday and I have not been having any problems. Now all I have to do is manage to keep up with my to do list... :-)