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... :-)

Work and such

Everybody wish me luck. I go back to work after new year's. I think I can deal with a close to full time schedule, but we shall see.

Removal of extra parts!

Yay, the feeding tube is out and the trach will be coming out in about 6 hours. That will be the last of the extra parts that have been added to me over the last six months. I have lots of new and interesting scars, but I can finally say that I am all original again. Now all I have to do is to wait for the extra holes to close up. I'm quite happy about this!