I sent a short email to my boss and several co-workers letting them know that I may be out soon due to the upcoming transplant surgery. One of the ask how I was feeling about it. I guess things have been progressing so fast after waiting four years that I haven’t processed anything yet.
All this time, I thought I would have several months to prepare for the surgery. For my open heart surgery, they did the angiogram on Tuesday and operated on me Thursday. The situation was probably more urgent but no one offered me any options. After the angiogram, my cardiologist said it was too severe for an angioplasty. I saw the thoracic surgeon next and went ahead with the surgery. I don’t know if things would have turned out any different if I had two weeks to think about it.
I am a bit worried about COVID-19. I don’t think there is additional risk from sharing a room with another organ recipient patient since they are not allowing any visitors. The recovery area should be isolated from the rest of the hospital so likely it will be the safest area in the hospital. COVID-19 does add uncertainty to the process however. We don’t know if the current spike in cases will get worse over the next few weeks. They’ve assigned all the ICU beds to handle COVID patients. If they get more impacted, it’s hard to justify reserving available hospital beds for “voluntary” organ transplants while people are dying. There is also a chance that the county health department will shut down all non-emergency procedures like they did last March. I did send a note to my nephrologist and she reminded me that the situation can change quickly, even in normal times, so be prepared.
As for the transplant, it’s hard to imagine. Four years is a long time to get used to a situation and dialysis seems a “natural” part of life. I haven’t traveled for so long that I barely think about it, unless I’m looking through travel magazines. There will be more challenges post-surgery since there are lots of new medications to deal with, but almost every transplant recipient I’ve talked to says it’s a much better life post-transplant.
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Maybe as a reminder, my right foot started hurting while I was typing the text above. It’s at the bottom of my foot, a bit above the heel. Even after the transplant, I will still have a bunch of chronic health issues, especially the peripheral neuropathy which seems to have no cure. Sigh… time for Tylenol and a nap.
Life with chronic diseases 