I'm Home!!

Hello all,

I was discharged from the hospital today, 17 days after my transplant. That is a very good sign and on the slightly below average amount of time that most people take. I still have quite a long way to go, but things seem to be progressing as well as they could. I am proud to say I walked out of the hospital on my own power all the way from my room to the parking lot. Quite an accomplishment given that up until a few days ago I was really only walking about 1000ft. a few times a day. My lungs are probably the strongest part of my body right now, oh the irony!!

I have had what the doctors would consider only very minor setbacks and obstacles to overcome. My new lungs seem to continue to be a bit congested. No one is quite sure why, but it is common for some. The surgery builds up fluid, old congestion from my upper airway could trickle down and I just am not strong enough yet to cough it out. This should all improve over time with some antibiotics. My only other 2 major issues are 1) I seem to have an area in my lower left side of my chest that rattles and makes weird noises when I breath in. The chest xray looks great though, so the docs are split as to what it is. CF and Pulmonary docs think it is fluid or congestion, surgeons think it could be more from a slight mismatch in size of the new lungs and the lung has not fully adhered to my chest wall yet. They all think this will resolve no matter what it is, and no one is concerned to order any invasive testing, so green light ahead. I side with the surgeons because it just feels like a hollow space.

And finally the 2) issue is just a lot of pain and discomfort from the incision and the breaking of my sternum. This makes things difficult.

I have a complete new regimen of medications to learn and it is very overwhelming right now for me, Rebec, and my Mom. But without having them here this would be impossible. They have been amazing. Complete saviors and taking care of everything. My mind is still not the clearest and I fatigue real quickly, so this is the start of a whole new journey. That is why it takes 3 months, I realize now. My mom picked up literally 20 prescriptions today at CVS!! These will slowly taper down over the course of the next few weeks, but for now this is what I need.

Thanks again to everyone, it is great hearing and reading the comments. I have not really been able to talk on my phone or email that much yet, it is slowly coming back to me, but it is just not a priority yet for me and all of these meds really throw me for a loop. I do read all the comments and feel free to send texts, which I will read. Maybe this will slowly "wake" me back up.

I will start posting more though now as I have gotten alot of emails from even strangers and others waiting tx who want to follow.

Hope to see everyone soon..

-Mitch