Reject This

Well, perhaps it is time for this blog to get exciting again. Not in the best way possible, I'm afraid. It seems as though I am having a bout of acute rejection. Yes, this sounds bad, but perhaps it will turn out to be a good thing....

The last few weeks I have actually been feeling fairly good. My exercise tolerance was up, my energy level was fairly good, I was working hard and getting a lot accomplished and of course really thought life was about as normal as it had been in a long time. I did have this type of glass ceiling though that was bothering me. Where it seemed like exercise was not getting easier, and I could just not breakthrough and make larger gains.

The team at Chapel Hill wanted to see me last friday in clinic, since we were planning a mothers day trip this weekend (still going), and did not want to go off to chapel hill upon returning, so they requested I come down. Well, it turned out to be a good thing, diagnostic wise. It seems the chest xray on the left side looked much worse then previously. They had been watching a small white nodule area about a month or two back, which they cultured and it was basically negative, and did not change. However, this time it was much larger and diffuse on the left handside. Their first inclination was some sort of fungal or bacterial infection, since I really did not have any clinical symptoms. However, they needed another bronchoscopy to take samples and biopsies to figure out how to treat it and what it was. So, they scheduled me for a bronch on monday, the 3rd, and they also scheduled a line placement for the 4th, knowing it was a given i would need some sort of IV treatment.

I was a bit bummed out, and it was annoying to drive home friday night, and then return first thing monday morning for these procedures. My Dad came with me and did the driving. They did the Bronch, which was not an OR bronch, so you would think recover would be a bit easier, however I was really heavily sedated, and I don't remember a thing at all about monday. Some how I walked out of the hospital under my own power, went into Chiptole (becoming a tradition) ordered, took it back to my room, and ate it. The first thing I remember though is waking up at 7:30 at night on the couch in the hotel, with a 3/4 eaten burrito spread over the table. That no memory cocktail really works. I sure remember everything before, the 4 IV sticks it took to get the IV started, including a hit nerve in my hand. I hate my veins.

So, reluctantly I returned first thing tuesday morning for the line placement. Luckily, I had a Interventional Radioligist Doc, that really listened to me. I told him all about my aweful vein history. He listened!! I told him where I thought his best chance was, he listened!! I told him what the plan B option was, and get this, he listened!!! and prepped that area. Well, he was great and was able to thread the line no problem, something someone has not been able to do in 15 years! That is why I had a port for 10 and the last picc after transplant had to come out.

Anyway, finally today we got some results and news. Dr. Noone called personally and said the pathologist discovered acute rejection. They are a bit baffled why the left side is the only side that looks bad, and that a nodule is there. Mostly not due to rejection. But no two cases are really alike. The good news is most people, like I stated in previous posts do get an episode or two of acute rejection in the first year. I have avoided it so far or at least never had a positive biopsy. There is a concrete treatment for this, it is not long, about a week, of high doses of steroids. 3 days via iv, and the rest oral. It should work, and potentially I could get much better and break through that glass ceiling. So, it is a bit nice to have an actual answer with a definite solution and approach. I pick up the meds tomorrow on our way to the airport, and I hope to be in a steroid induced rage by tomorrow night. So, if you see some wild maniac running naked on the beaches of the west coast of florida looking for dead pelicans and dolphins from the BP oil spill and cursing Big Oil and all of Earth's "advances" in a hypocritical fashion, that would be me!!!

Until then, may the force be with you!

-Mitch