Lifesavers for Latasha

February 1 marked seven months since my heart and double lung transplant.

I think my stomach issues have finally resolved as I haven’t had any nausea or vomiting since early January. I now am eating regular foods with no problems. I am so happy to be on the other side of that, especially since I didn’t think I would make it through after dealing with it for months.

I am still struggling with going upstairs, but I am slowly gaining my leg strength back. I tackled going up and down our basement stairs a few times in the last few days. Hopefully, over the next few weeks, I’ll be back to being able to carry laundry up and downstairs, so I won’t have to continue to depend on Chris for that.

My right side where I had my surgery for hemothorax still has some numbness and discomfort. They told me it could take up to a year for the numbness to go away due to the nerves having to heal. The discomfort/pain changes based on certain positions. Wearing a bra causes a lot of discomfort and pain still, but I’ve been trying to wear one for longer periods of time when I wear one.

I’ve been getting blood work done about every two weeks, and the results have remained stable for the last month. I am hoping this means my medications won’t need to be tweaked again, at least for a while.

My next bronchoscopy and follow-up appointments are later this month.

In the meantime, I am planning on writing a letter to the organ donor’s family. I’ve been writing this letter in my head since I had the transplant. Now, it’s time for me to get it on paper, so it may be delivered to the family. I think of my organ donor and the organ donor’s family on a daily basis. I may or may not receive a response to my letter, but I hope I do because I want to know more about my donor. Most days I still don’t believe I was lucky enough to have a transplant. I know it wouldn’t have happened without my donor’s unselfish ultimate gift to a stranger.

When Chris and I started this journey, we had no idea the effects it would have on every part of our lives, physically, emotionally, mentally, and spiritually. Everything has been a lot over the past several months. It finally feels like things are getting to a new normal, though, and we’re talking about things we want to do and places we want to go soon. We’ve gone out and about to a few stores and restaurants, but it’ll be nice to travel somewhere.

At this point in the journey, I’m able to reflect on how far I’ve come over the last seven months. From being 100% dependent on Chris to help me with everything from going to the bathroom to eating to him dealing with me being sick and vomiting multiple times a day to now where I’m able to do most things by myself and helping out more around the house again and being able to eat normally, I feel like the last seven months have been a whirlwind. Some days, it feels like this all just happened yesterday; other days, it feels like it happened forever ago.

When we first started this journey, people told us to give it at least nine to 12 months after the transplant to start feeling normal again. I’m happy I’ve started feeling normal again sooner than that. I hope that means I’ll just keep feeling more normal as the days go by.

Thank you to each of you for being on this journey with us. Hopefully, these updates will continue to be positive from now on.