Lifesavers for Latasha

Well, adventurers, that pesky old rickety rollercoaster ran my big toe over today. My blatant poor attempt at humor is telling of us having a pretty crappy day.

Last week and today, Latasha had numerous tests to assess how her body was healing in its postoperative phase.

From the transplant perspective, her heart and lungs are doing fantastic. Her incisions are healing up nicely and turning into beautiful battle scars to memorialize the fight Tasha won. Her muscles are getting stronger, and she can easily walk several flights of stairs. Her lung capacity is increasing each week, giving her a new sense of energy. So from all of that, everything is excellent.

Now, the not-so-great. Today marked some severe setbacks, hence the rollercoaster analogy.

Tasha had a gastrointestinal study, one of many to come, to determine how long her stomach and gastrointestinal tract take to digest and absorb food. Before surgery, she would digest an egg in under two hours, which is normal. As of Friday, the egg hadn’t gone anywhere after four hours. The diagnosis for this is severe gastroparesis, which means Tasha has a greater than 50% slowing of her digestive process. In reality, it’s more like 75%, and this is what is causing her severe nausea and non-stop vomiting.

So why is this a problem aside from the obvious? Well, it causes her medication levels to fall under therapeutic levels, which can cause acute organ rejection. It causes muscle mass, weight loss, and malnutrition. And dehydration, which can impact the heart, liver, and kidneys. So, none of this is good.

They treat gastroparesis in a phased approach, first with medication, then a Botox shot in the bottom of the stomach, then laparoscopic surgery, and then the nuclear option, gastric bypass. They started her on the medication and a liquid diet today to see how she does over the next week.

Unfortunately, because of all the cons mentioned above of this disorder, the doctors have discussed admitting Tasha back into the hospital to put a feeding tube in and see how she responds.

And then, to top all that off, Tasha had her bronchoscopy biopsy this morning, and when they went to start it, she vomited, and they stopped. This was the most critical procedure to see if rejection was occurring, but more important for our mental health, our ticket home.

I would be lying if I said we were remotely okay. I admiringly did not handle the day well at all. Cleveland Clinic and this apartment now feel like a prison and no end in sight. Demoralizing pretty much sums up today.

We have another appointment scheduled for her for labs, X-rays, spirometry, clinical reviews, and another bronchoscopy next Tuesday. Our goal is to get the nausea under control through diet, and we will see how that goes.

So wish us luck on this next loopy-loop incline twist cliff drop-off section of the never-ending slow, excruciating rollercoaster.

Until next week, my friends.