Today was the first day I didn't have any muscular pain under my incision! Sitting down, standing up -- everything was just fine! Just about the five-week mark exactly.
I'd begun to worry -- after all, I'd done things like lift a 40-pound dog onto a grooming table at about the 2-week mark. And Cheryl had said recently she'd been pain-free for quite some time.
But on Memorial Day, she mowed her lawn and said whoops-- pain! So maybe it has to do with exertion.
Still not going to sit around.
Holly
Friday, June 4, 2010
Thursday, June 3, 2010
It's a med, med, med, med world
I realize I've referred many times to the immunosuppressants and other medications I'm on, but haven't detailed them.
Here's the rundown of what I was sent home with, with quantities in numbers of pills, not milligrams:
Morning
I've since been taken off the antiviral, and was thankful to leave joint pain behind.
The most challenging side effect has been the inability to sleep -- thanks mainly to the immunosuppressants. I'm talking lying awake, tossing and turning, until 5 in the morning. I finally had to ask for a sleeping pill to be prescribed. Recovery just wasn't going to take place otherwise.
I've had several of the other side effects -- such as anything solid I eat going right through me. But the folks at the U don't want to cut down on anything else just yet, and I'm not complaining.
Ten or 20 years ago, I'd have been put on Prednisone, with its attendant, nearly-inescapable weight gain. My father remembers a young guy in his cohort who came in looking like a bodybuilder but after a year with his transplant was well over 300 pounds. Prednisone deposits fat in your face, in your belly, on the back of your neck and shoulders, and as an even more enjoyable side effect, "increases appetite."
My father's experience with it is also that it thins skin -- to the point that his was like tissue paper for years, and the lightest brush of the back of his hand against a branch or table edge would peel back inches of skin, leaving him bleeding profusely and opening another site for infection. It sapped him of his muscle mass, and he's torn both biceps from their moorings during those Prednisone years.
He's since been taken off it -- some combination of being elderly and having his transplant for so long may have made it easier to suppress his immune system without it -- but he still carries long-term effects.
So hearing I wouldn't be put on Prednisone was such a relief to me. The rest of the stuff I can live with.
Here's the rundown of what I was sent home with, with quantities in numbers of pills, not milligrams:
Morning
- Immunosuppressant 1: 4 tablets
- Immunosuppressant 2: 3 tablets
- Anti-bacterial: 1 tablet
- Anti-viral: 1 tablet
- Blood-pressure control: 1 tablet
- Calcium: 1 tablet
- Pro-digestive (to help keep pills from eating up my stomach): 1 tablet
- Troche to keep from getting thrush from antibacterial: 1 tablet
- Immunosuppressant 1: 4 tablets
- Immunosuppressant 2: 3 tablets
- Cholesterol control: 1 tablet
- Troche: 1 tablet
- Immunosuppressant 1: tremor, constipation, diarrhea, headache, anxiety, trouble
- sleeping, nausea
- Immunosuppressant 2: joint pain, constipation, diarrhea, headache, anxiety,
- trouble sleeping, nausea
- Antibacterial: diarrhea, nausea
- Antiviral: constipation, joint pain, diarrhea, headache, trouble sleeping, nausea
- Blood-pressure control: swelling, dizziness, palpitations, headache, nausea
- Cholesterol control: abdominal pain, diarrhea, indigestion, general weakness
- Pro-digestive: constipation, diarrhea, rash, headache, nausea
I've since been taken off the antiviral, and was thankful to leave joint pain behind.
The most challenging side effect has been the inability to sleep -- thanks mainly to the immunosuppressants. I'm talking lying awake, tossing and turning, until 5 in the morning. I finally had to ask for a sleeping pill to be prescribed. Recovery just wasn't going to take place otherwise.
I've had several of the other side effects -- such as anything solid I eat going right through me. But the folks at the U don't want to cut down on anything else just yet, and I'm not complaining.
Ten or 20 years ago, I'd have been put on Prednisone, with its attendant, nearly-inescapable weight gain. My father remembers a young guy in his cohort who came in looking like a bodybuilder but after a year with his transplant was well over 300 pounds. Prednisone deposits fat in your face, in your belly, on the back of your neck and shoulders, and as an even more enjoyable side effect, "increases appetite."
My father's experience with it is also that it thins skin -- to the point that his was like tissue paper for years, and the lightest brush of the back of his hand against a branch or table edge would peel back inches of skin, leaving him bleeding profusely and opening another site for infection. It sapped him of his muscle mass, and he's torn both biceps from their moorings during those Prednisone years.
He's since been taken off it -- some combination of being elderly and having his transplant for so long may have made it easier to suppress his immune system without it -- but he still carries long-term effects.
So hearing I wouldn't be put on Prednisone was such a relief to me. The rest of the stuff I can live with.
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