9/13/2019

Thursday

MargaretMargaret
Filed under: @ 10:43 am

Okay, yeah, it’s Friday. So sue me.

The important bits happened yesterday.

We went to our second of the week recheck appointment at the transplant center yesterday morning. In the last 3 days or so Andrew has gone from being a postoperative patient to a recovering patient. Which is to say that he isn’t needing any pain medication, he doesn’t need two naps a day, and he has enough energy to be purposefully annoying. At this point Andrew still fatigues easily with anything more than the mildest of exercise, we’re still looking for parking places close to where we need to be and thanks to St. Joan of Park we can generally find one, but his energy is much better.
As of early this week the transplant nephrologist decreased Andrew’s tacrolimus dose (the primary immunosuppressant drug) by about 2/3 and instructed Andrew to drink more water. LOTS more water. Given Andrew’s natural fluid intake this means that he’s currently under orders to drink 3-4 liters of fluid daily.
The decreased tacrolimus dose and increased fluid consumption has yet to make any significant difference in Andrew’s creatinine level which, as of yesterday’s check, still hovered just a smidgen above what’s normal. Also the urine concentration is still higher than is ideal, but since the dose tacrolimus was decreased only a day before the most recent blood panel was taken it’s quite likely that Sunday’s values will be better.
And if not, says the transplant nephrologist, we may have to pursue a biopsy (again, ick) to be sure that there isn’t any low grade rejection affecting renal function.
So a mixed bag at the end of the week, but Dr. Vadivel, the transplant nephrologist, seemed optimistic about the changes that he’d made having the desired effect by the beginning of next week. We shall see.

System Pavers is nominally done — there are still a few details left to detail, but that should happen either today or Monday. I’ve got the shadow box almost finished and it should be able to go in place on the lanai this weekend, and I’ve manufactured a lot, well five so far, of pillow shams that need to be washed before they’re stuffed and finished into pillows.
When it’s not raining I shall start clearing out my garden shed.
Placidly content, thanks. How about you?

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