We finally got a call from the transplant center yesterday evening about the afternoon’s labs.

Andrew’s blood tacrolimus levels (tacrolimus is the primary immunosuppressant drug) are within therapeutic levels so he can stop taking prednisone.
Prednisone is another immunosuppressant drug and since large doses of prednisone can also really mess with a diabetic’s blood glucose levels the fact that Andrew can stop taking it so soon after the transplant is freakin’ fantastic!

He seems to be tolerating the other medications fairly well so far.

I was awakened at a completely stupid hour this morning because the neighbor’s damn dogs were barking and continued to bark fairly consistently until about half an hour ago. A.K.A. early for a Saturday but not an entirely unreasonable hour. This upcoming week I plan on going down to city hall and speaking with someone in charge about those dogs. The neighbors have one tied to a tree in their back yard, the other one wanders free in the yard, and put out food in large volumes for them 2 or 3 times per week. Which means that my vegetable garden is absolutely ALIVE with rats who feast on dog food, dig up my potatoes, and gnaw on my bean plants, pumpkins, and corn stalks. And it means that the raccoons, opossums, and probably skunks that tiptoe in after dark to partake in their share of the feast wake the dogs who then bark at the intruders for hours at a time.

The dogs didn’t wake Andrew, for a wonder, but he didn’t sleep particularly well. The primary incision is oozing serum fairly constantly. The subcutaneous pressure of this ooze is uncomfortable enough to keep him awake, but not, apparently, uncomfortable enough for him to want to take a pain pill.
We’re both a little on the grouchy side this morning.

Andrew was diagnosed diabetic in November of 1995 which was the winter before we were married.

Andrew had proposed to me, using a ring that had belonged to his grandfather, the February previously when we were in Hawaii for a visit.
On telling my parents that we were, at long last, getting married my mother asked if I wanted to wear her wedding dress. Sure! Why not! And since I was the youngest unmarried grand-daughter at the time of her death I had inherited the elbow length kid leather white gloves that Gram Do, my Aunt Do, and my mother had all worn when they were married. I figured adding Mom’s wedding dress to the mix would be appropriate.
Mom got the dress out of storage and because she is garrulous and ran a book store at the time, she knew a local woman who did wedding tailoring.
The first dress fitting was not what one would call ideal. Because I rarely wore dresses and had never had anything professionally fitted it didn’t really occur to me that I’d be asked to strip to my skivvies. So in addition to showing up at this Very Proper Bellevue Matron’s home wearing cutoff shorts and Birkenstock sandals I was wearing the bottom-of-the-drawer “I’ve really got to do some laundry” raggedy purple underwear. So I was moderately shocking to this Very Proper Matron, a condition that was exacerbated by the fact that I told her we (gasp) had no plans of having wedding attendants as part of the ceremony and (swoon) I WASN’T GOING TO WEAR A GARTER.
Also I was, still am in fact, a little sloppy around the middle and the dress couldn’t be zipped.
The tailor hummed and hawed and measured and wrote things down in her little book and as we were taking our leave she patted my shoulder and said to me “Honey, do yourself a favor. Between now and January lose 25 pounds.” I could feel my mother growing big ugly porcupine spines at that. Weight shaming is NOT something that you do to one of her daughters. As we walked away, and as soon as we were out of earshot, I made sure to tell her that it made no difference what the tailor had said. The tailor could make the dress fit regardless and if I decided I wanted to lose a few pounds I would and if I didn’t I wouldn’t.
That was in July.
Well, in between July and January, of course, came Andrew’s diabetes diagnosis and since the easiest way to manage type 2 diabetes is through weight loss we both went on a significantly calorie restricted diet. I don’t remember how much Andrew lost, but I lost 18 pounds and when I went for the next dress fitting in January the tailor was properly confused because the wedding dress fit a lot better than it had previously and all her measurements were wrong.

I didn’t bother to tell her why, but then I’m mean like that sometimes.

Unregulated diabetes of any type is one of the surest ways possible to create renal dysfunction there is. The kidneys are a series of microscopic filtering tubes and since molecules as big as glucose aren’t supposed to push through those filters chronically elevated blood glucose basically wears the filters out or gums them up. If you add to that chronic hypertension, which results in decreased blood flow to the kidneys, and the predisposition of anyone with a lot of glucose in their urine being much more susceptible to urinary tract infection, diabetes delivers a triple slam to kidney tissue.

Another reason, should anyone need it, to try like crazy to avoid developing unregulated diabetes.