Skip to main content

busy, BuSy, BUSY

Busy BUSY week!
Monday: I had my last biopsy going through my neck!!! So happy I am! Now they can just take my blood and do some testing on it to see if the ticker is rejecting or not. There is a magical number 34, so if I am below 34 I am good to go, but if I am above, then I will have to go in for a normal neck cramping biopsy. This test is called Al-o-map not quit sure how to spell it, but how thrilled I am about it. It takes 48 hours to process though. My alomap came back at 32. I asked the nurse what was the lowest number he has seen and he said it doesn't matter because a 10 or a 32 could mean the same amount of rejection. I thought that was interesting. So my biospy and echo was great. I asked the radiologist that was performing my echo about ejection fraction (EF), how well the left side of the heart pumps blood to your body. He said that most athletes have a lower EF, mine is a 56% if I round it up. Ever since I was diagnosed with my heart problem EF was a huge deal for me to know, but now there is no need to worry about it. I still kinda do, though even when my docs and husband tell me not too. Also, the radiologist said that most all heart transplant patients have to get an IV and they have to shoot this dye into them to see their heart function. Mine is nice and clear! Pretty happy about that, he said it's like you didn't have heart surgery.

Tuesday: I got off work early so I decided to go to the gym and ride the bike. Got my heart rate racing, sweated and absolutely loved it. My achilles are healing great. It is so hard to rest, though. I said in my last post that I was hoping to go back to the gym this week. I read online that it takes achilles tendonitis about 4-6 weeks to fully heal. :( So I am trying my best not to irritate it. This coming week I am going to continue to ride the bike and I am going to start going on the elliptical. I am hoping my achilles will behave themselves. I went to Katie's to get a trim for the hair do for me to be on Channel 4 News with Nadia Crow.

Wednesday: Nadia Crow and I chatted about how I have been since my new heart and what it was like when I got the call and what I would say to the donor families. It hasn't aired yet, but I will let you know when it does! Afterward, I felt a little prideful of myself.  5 months ago I had to have a 24 hour caregiver, I wasn't able to shower on my own, doing my laundry was a major chore for me. I was reading one of my older posts and I was so amazed that I was able to go on a walk, shower all by myself, do my laundry, not tired yet and then go over to Katie's to have her write thank you cards to my donors. It's the small and simple things that we forget that are so important. Be thankful! There are many people out there that aren't able to do a lot of things.

Thursday: We had a DASH 4 ASH meeting. Can't believe it's only 3 weeks away. We got the shirts and they are rad. Thank you to the Ridge, A-core, Ralph Wadsworth Construction, Utah Disaster, Wadsworth Developement, Straws, SLUG Magazine and Wadsworth Brothers for the sponsoring. We are still open for receiving more sponsors til the 28th of September.

Friday: We drove up to Duchense to watch my cousin from Monticello play football. It was fun. We got to be on the field I thought that was really cool.

Saturday: We went to go walk the Heart/Stroke 5k and represent DASH  4 ASH. We all wore our shirts, walked and passed out flyers for the DASH this October10th. Thanks to the crew that came out to support Heart/Stroke and Dash 4 Ash. A walk a day can give you 5-7 more years of LIFE!


The crew before. COOL shirts huh? 
Left to right: Brad, Tess, Lorie, Cindy, Me, Steve- o, Mama & Brother


FINISHED!!


For my Mam, she is oh so proud of me


Comments

  1. Yes I am proud of you. The world is a better place with you in it. Love you

    ReplyDelete

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Chalk It Up as a Miracle.........

Some of you may know, but Ashley went through another Heart Transplant yesterday. After her first first new heart started to fail, we re-listed on the her on the transplant list immediately. We knew getting another heart would be a long shot, but we wanted the option to be there if a heart came available. Sure enough 18 hours on the list a second heart came available that was a perfect match for Ashley. Ironically, it took 4.5 months and then 2 hearts in the same week. We, including the doctors, are all chalking it up as a miracle. It was decided not to wait to see if the first heart would handle the load she would need but rather to move forward with the new donor heart. Going through a transplant a second time makes you really feel for the family who lost their daughter, sister, spouse and friend. We are grateful again for the family and the individual who choose to give life. We were in quite a predicament and feel only divine intervention could hav...

Stinking INR

Another day in this lovely hospital because my stinking INR will not get were in needs to be. INR means International Normalized Ratio, its a number that describes your bloods clotting factor. Doctors want my INR to be around 2.0 but I am stuck at 1.5, a normal person should be below 1.0. So the higher the INR the thinner the blood. Because I have an LVAD they are very picky about my INR because they don't want a clot to form in my LVAD. But, if my INR gets too high I bleed, so it's a fine line we are walking until I get my new heart. On a higher note, my mom and I did some crafts.... getting ready for Christmas and my baby boy Wrigley came and visited me, some of you are thinking Wrigley is a terrible child's name but he is actually my French Bulldog :)

New Day, New Chapter, New....????

After the other days SHOCKing experience, I had to go into the clinic today to have my device interrogated.   Basically find out why I got shocked…. Was it warranted?? My device is set to SHOCK me if my heart gets beating too fast, like 180bpm or higher. Which I guess I excreted myself too much yesterday. This is a little bit upsetting, I was hardly up the trail and I got shocked. How am I supposed to do anything physical and not get shocked? Think about trying to exercise but also having to worry about a horse kicking you in the chest at any time.   Leaving the clinic I was pretty bummed… Is my heart just getting worse? Anyway, I went to work at straws and about an hour into work the clinic was calling me. I didn’t want to answer because I had a feeling my INR would be too low again and I would have to be admitted to the hospital. Anyway, I answered and Dr. Kia was on the line. He said “I heard you left upset from the clinic today?” I figured he was about to give me a pe...