Six Month Transplant Survivor

Wow! Just wow! It’s hard to believe it’s been six months since Becky’s liver and kidney transplant! As I’ve said many times, the road has certainly not been straight or easy. There have been many bumps and detours and roundabouts. The latest adventure is actually a crack in the road. More on that later. For now, fair warning that this blog post will be a bit longer than most.

The road has actually been considerably smoother and manageable lately. In my last post I mentioned that we were starting to track a new trend… normal work weeks without trips to the Emergency Room or hospital. Well, unfortunately that trend didn’t hold for very long. Within a week Becky was back at the ER and spent a couple days in the hospital with another bout of stomach/GI issues. After a phone call to a UTSW Pharmacist, we determined the most likely cause was a recently added iron pill. Pulling that back out of Becky’s daily med list put her back on the smoother road.

Then we came to a crack in the road. Overall, Becky had been feeling pretty good compared to previous months. In fact, she felt so good that she decided to take a good soak in the bathtub. It had been over six months since she had the strength to get in and out of the tub. And just as we were thinking this was another milestone on the road to recovery, Becky heard a crack while she was leaning over the edge and cleaning the tub. Nope, it wasn’t the bathtub. It was her rib. She re-injured one of the same ribs she cracked twice before in the last three years. We’re still waiting on the official results of the X-ray, but whether cracked or bruised, there’s no question it hurts. On the plus side, it was a short trip to the ER to make sure there wasn’t anything else to be concerned about - not that a rib injury isn’t enough, but it was right where the liver is, so we wanted to be sure.

So, again, things are much better. In fact, we were able to join the Eichinger family (Becky's mom's family) at the annual family reunion on Sunday. It was another reminder of how much has happened in the last year. At the time of last year's reunion, Becky was just beginning to show signs that her non-alcoholic fatty liver disease was progressing into something more. Her first trip to the Emergency Room for a paracentesis to drain her ascites fluid building up because of her failing liver was still a couple months away. After that the disease progressed into liver failure, the liver failure damaged the kidneys, Becky spent a month in the ICU waiting for a donor, she received a donated liver and kidney, and then spent another couple weeks in ICU recovering plus another month in the hospital and rehab before finally coming home. And of course, the recovery has continued for the last few months at home. What a whirlwind!

We are still working on how to manage a few things. Becky's iron level continues to be low, and her kidney numbers (primarily the creatinine) continue to be a little high. We've been working with the team at UTSW to try to come up with ways to manage both of those with resources and facilities here in the Georgetown/Austin area rather than having to continue making trips to Dallas or to the local ER. We have another round of regular checkup appointments in Dallas this week and hope to get more good news there.

Overall, the road keeps getting a little smoother and little more predictable every week. Becky is starting to catch up on appointments that she's missed over the last six months. Well, both of us are. We went to the eye doctor over the weekend. Becky's vision changed quite a bit as a result of all the stress on her body. As for me, I've started to develop cataracts and at least one is getting close to being ready to remove. Yay! Dentist appointments and other annual checkups are in the works. It's all part of getting ready for a trip to Disney World with the kids and grandkids sometime in the not-too-distant future. I think we both feel that will be the point where we can say the bulk of the stress, the pain, the struggle, and everything else is behind us.

One final note for this post. If I haven't mentioned it before, and I probably have to at least some of you, I do plan to convert this blog into a book at some point. I'm not quite sure what the plot will be yet, other than the obvious, but I'm sure I'll come up with something. Becky has said she wants to write the forward of that book when I get that far.

And I couldn't close this out without saying it again, thank you to all of you that have been and continue to be prayer warriors throughout this journey. The journey continues...

Eichinger Family Cousins

The Lego Road

A couple of you have asked recently how Becky is doing. You've noticed that I haven't posted an update lately. You may be wondering what road we're on this week. What if I told you that the photo I picked for this post is a Lego chain reaction my grandson and I spent a few hours creating last weekend (not quite a Rube Goldberg machine, but close)? Would that give you a clue? 

If you haven't connected the dots, the fact that I had a few hours to spend some quality time working on a project just for the fun of it is a sign that things have improved ... a lot. Last weekend ended what had been a streak of four consecutive weekends that we spent time in an emergency room or hospital, sometimes for days and once for an entire week. It seems that finally, fortunately, somewhat surprisingly, and almost amazingly, Becky seems to have turned the proverbial corner. And although we had a little bit of a setback with a midweek med mix-up (Becky's transplant coordinator's fault, not ours), we haven't been to a hospital or ER for two full weeks. Shh, not too loud. Now we're starting a new streak - a streak of weeks with no hospital time and where I work a fairly normal schedule. Yes, I'm knocking on wood as I write this.

Instead of spending time in a hospital last weekend, we had some family time with all the kids and grandkids enjoying a belated birthday lunch for Becky at Longhorn Steakhouse. We had more family time on the days before and after (including Lego building), and we're looking forward to more this weekend. Becky's nausea and GI issues finally seem to be under control. As a result, her appetite is improving almost daily. Thank God! Literally ... we thank God!

Becky even felt good enough this week to have lunch with her brother and cousin, set up an appointment with physical therapy, and shop for some new clothes (since she's lost about a third of her body weight in the last six months).

So, there you have it. Becky's doing better and we're praying the trend continues. Is the journey over? No, far from it. Are we on a better road? Yep, it feels like we're finally off the gravel road out in the country where there were no road signs to guide us, and back on pavement (pavement built with Legos).

Thank you, thank you, thank you to all of you that have been prayer warriors with and for us. We appreciate you more than you'll ever know. 

P.S. Don't close the book. The story's not over. We just feel like we're starting the next chapter.