Day 22 - May 2nd

Well it has been three weeks we have been in beautiful Rochester, did I mentioned it has been raining/snowing everyday but three since we have been here.  I am not really complaining since things are going so well.  Today was a LONG day though, started at 6:30 AM and ended at 4:30 PM when we finally got back to the transplant house and had breakfast.

She had her first heart biopsy today.  They normally fish the catheter through the jugular down into the heart and grab 4 pieces of it to take a look at the actual tissue.  Because of all of the previous catheters she has had there was some kind of blood clot that formed on her jugular vein and they had to go in through the femoral vein, this is not a problem it just takes longer.  They semi-knock her out for this procedure, something called twilight, you aren't asleep and you are aware of what is going on but just don't care.  She came through this procedure just fine.  When they got her up to walk an hour or so after the procedure we had walked about 15 feet and her foot was turning red, blood was running down her leg and on to her foot  from the insertion point.  Not a big problem since it was a vein (lower pressure than an artery) and they hustled her back to bed, put pressure on the 'hole' and then put a 'sandbag' (their word not mine) on it for pressure, an hour later she walked again and no problems!  The end result was there there was no sign of rejection from any of the tissue that was removed!!  This was actually the expected result since she has been on so much anti-rejection meds but it was a possibility.

The blood clot seems to be of interest to the docs and we have a few tests that have been added to tomorrows schedule to see what is going on with it.  No one seems to have their undies all bunched up about it but there is an interest as to what type of clot it is and they just want to find out and then decide what to do about it.

Her blood work is still fine and they are actually taking her off of a blood pressure medicine.

It is amazing how you can have a day that is, for the most part, open one minute and then 4 hours later have the day filled up with appointments.  We get a new schedule printed every morning and today we went through 3 printings and we know we currently do not have the most current.  Fortunately they have the date and TIME that they were printed otherwise it would be impossible to keep them straight.

She starts cardiac rehab some day this week but I am not sure what day right now, I know that it is not tomorrow though.

I heard this quote today from the guy currently sitting next to me:

"The trouble with quotes over the Internet is you never know if they are genuine."
   Abraham Lincoln

I really liked that one.......