Rainy Thursday

We had a bit of a rough start today. Anna had to get up super early in order to return to the hospital for her first round of anti-rejection medication. What we didn’t realize is that this is actually a long process and not a quick in and out procedure as one might assume. The easiest way to administer the anti-rejection meds post surgery is to use her existing neck catheter (that she used for her dialysis) to make the process faster and more efficient. The entire session is similar to that of chemotherapy – another process Anna unfortunately has experience with – it lasts four hours and the nurses affectionately refer to it as “flu in a bottle.” Anna left the house around 7:30 this morning and didn’t return home until after 4:00. She was tired, had the chills, nausea and had a soaring temperature. Thankfully she is doing better now. She was supposed to head back to the hospital and repeat this process tomorrow, but she was fortunate to learn that she can wait until Saturday for the second round. And hopefully they will remove her neck catheter at that time. She is very excited about this as she hasn’t been able to take a shower in 8-months because of the catheter – I’m guessing she will empty the hot water heater enjoying her first shower when it finally comes around!

I had a very different day today. Scott left this afternoon as our little girl is missing her parents fiercely right now. I have to stay here as I still have a post-op appointment to go to up here before I can go home. Scott said we could do whatever I wanted this morning, so of course I said “let’s go to IKEA!” So this morning I tried running through my typical morning routine starting with a shower followed by hair and makeup. I thought I was recovering quickly from this transplant, but attempting my normal routine proved to me I am not yet “back” to total health yet. I took a shower – then had to sit down for a rest and a little Good Morning America. Then I blew out my hair – followed by sitting down again for another rest. By the time my teeth were brushed I had come to the realization that make up was unnecessary for a trip to IKEA. What should have taken 30-40 minutes took me over an hour and I didn’t even finish all of my objectives for the morning.

While Scott and I were taking a pre-shopping break over a cup of coffee in the IKEA cafeteria, Anna called me to offer status on her appointment. When she found out I was at IKEA she demanded I ask for one of those little Rascals to ride around on at IKEA, she was worried it would be too much walking for me to handle. Scott agreed so I saddled up. Thank goodness we were there earlier in the day, because I could have easily taken out a few slower moving folks with that electronic go-cart thing. It was fun, but hard to maneuver.

After we returned home, Anna’s cousins Jackie and Kimmi and second-cousin Hannah came to visit from Astoria. Unfortunately, Anna was still in her treatment and wasn’t able to meet 8-month old Hannah. Even more unfortunately, I forgot to ask them to bring us a pizza from our favorite pizza joint – Fultano’s. That would have been wonderful.

I’m pretty saddened by the fact that Anna is still struggling right now. I wasn’t prepared for her health to be so impacted nearly a week post surgery. I never expected her to be 100%, but I did think we would be recovering on a similar schedule. Maybe it was unrealistic of me to expect her to be rejuvenated, but I was really hoping the darker days would be behind us at this point. We’re hoping she makes big strides over the weekend.

When Anna crawled out of bed this morning she placed her medication supply on the bed. We call it a tackle box because it is the biggest darn pill box either of us has ever seen. She opened up the 8:00 am slot to expose possibly 30 pills to take upon waking up. She started saying that she didn’t have the strength to take all those pills, but in true Anna form, quickly stopped herself and said “No, I’m not going to complain about taking all these pills. I’m lucky to be here today and be able to take these pills. I’m not going to complain.” That’s why I adore this woman so much, she lives every day in such pain and yet she still chooses to start off with a positive attitude. We could all learn something about living from Anna.