My favourite picture by far this week is my niece Flora’s lovely monkey.
It’s coming up to 7 weeks since my transplant. I’m getting used to taking all the medications I need try to prevent rejection. I say ‘try’ because there is no guarantee and in fact some form of rejection is quite likely particularly in the first year after transplant.
Papworth keep a close eye on me and I have to do things myself to monitor my condition. That includes daily temperature, weight and lung function and reporting any unexpected changes.
It also includes being cautious and avoiding people with germs or infections. There is a list of foods an can’t eat, of which oysters is the one I am most upset about. I will never now be able to sit in the sun on the Atlantic coast with Martin with a big platter of oysters on ice and a chilled glass of white wine.
I can’t eat blue cheese, runny eggs (no point in eating most eggs if they’re not runny so that means no fried, poached or boiled eggs ever again), live yoghurt, hams like prosciutto, and the list goes on.
I am still taking 43 tablets a day, an assortment of immunosuppressants, antifungals, antivirals and antibiotics. All of which have side effects of course so I take things for those, one of which is antisickness. I also need to take meds to protect bone health. I was looking at my Adoport this morning thinking that those pills are all that is preventing me from dying!
I have a rigorous routine of meds times too as I have to take certain drugs either with or without food, some with orange or other juice, and most at particular times of the day.
All of this is a small price to pay for having new lungs. Before the operation I wasn’t aware of the finer detail of what life after transplant would entail but I doubt I would’ve absorbed all the information anyway as It would have seemed too remote or too ‘if’. I am now monitored by Papworth for the rest of my life.
Visits will reduce in frequency as time goes on. I am going weekly at the moment. I forget sometimes that it is not even 7 weeks and that I am still recovering from the op.
I have been doing some painting:
Here is a rather nice watercolour still life by Giorgio Morandi to sign off with:
