Lifesavers for Latasha

Happy belated holidays to everyone! I had wanted to write this post on Christmas Day, but, of course, as my luck would have it, I have been sick since Dec. 22. Today is the first day since then that I have felt somewhat back to normal.

Chris and I were able to spend the holidays with my family. My spending time with them mostly consisted of me lying in bed at my sister’s or parents’ house. I got to spend a few minutes with my family here and there as my sickness kept coming and going. My diet consisted of Gatorade, water, popsicles, and a few bites of food in between episodes of vomiting.

The three weeks leading up to Christmas week were the complete opposite. I felt great! I was out and about shopping and running errands. I was super excited about going down to Alabama and Georgia to see my family.

I even deep cleaned the bathrooms for the first time since my transplant. Chris had been doing all the housekeeping since my transplant, and I’ve very slowly been doing more and more. If you remember, before the transplant, it would take me forever to clean the bathrooms, because I would get out of breath so easily. Also, I would get so fatigued quickly and have to take many breaks. So, the day I decided to clean the bathrooms, I wanted to see if I could tell a difference from then and now. I am proud to say I didn’t have to take a break at all and was able to clean the bathrooms in half the time it used to take me. That is a huge accomplishment to me!

This is what makes this journey so frustrating. I have really good days, even weeks, where I know how much the transplant has changed my life for the better.

Then, there are still those bad days. The really bad days where I can’t get out of bed and can barely keep down sips of water or Gatorade. The bad days where I feel like such a burden and failure. The bad days where I repeat to myself “Glow through what you go through” as I vomit repeatedly for hours. The bad days where no one can rely on me or depend on me, because the sick feeling just won’t go away and opening my eyes seems to make the feeling worse.

One common thought that seems to pop up over and over in some of the transplant groups I belong to is when the anti-rejection medication gets too high in your blood it definitely causes sickness. And, so far, no one seems to be able to explain why the levels fluctuate so much from week to week. Many people speculate it’s based on timing of taking the medication, whether you’ve had food or not, what kind of food you’ve had, etc. No matter what people think, it seems that doctors can’t give a concrete reason for the fluctuations. As I’ve said before, it just seems to be an endless routine of increasing and decreasing the dosage based on the levels in your blood. Some people who are several years post-transplant have said the levels eventually do stabilize, but it may take years. This is definitely not something I thought I’d have to deal with for years.

The transplant team always says not to compare your journey to other transplant patients. It is so hard not to, though. I see and read about people who have had lung transplants and are out of the hospital within a month. Or the lung transplant patients who are doing all kinds of adventures after just six months post-transplant. I know their medical histories’ and mine are different, and even me having a heart and double lung transplant instead of just a lung transplant makes a difference. It’s still extremely frustrating and deflating at times. I even feel silly being so proud of cleaning the bathrooms, but that was a big moment for me.

Anyway, I thought at this point in the journey I wouldn’t feel so frustrated. I felt so good the weeks leading up to Christmas that I even told a friend that I didn’t want to jinx it by saying anything. I guess I spoke too soon.

For 2026, I hope I have many more good days than bad days. I hope I continue to notice the difference in the little every day activities that I am able to do now, and I hope, as silly as they may be, I continue to celebrate them and admire how far I truly have come since the transplant. I hope to spend more quality time with my family. I hope to experience new adventures with Chris. And I hope to embrace every. single. breath. One second at a time, one minute a time, one hour at a time, one day at a time until the day comes that I have only good days and no more bad ones. Until then, I will keep repeating to myself “Glow through what you go through” even on the hardest days and will do my best to abide by those words. Most of all, I want to make my family, friends, and my donor proud of me and worthy of this life-changing gift.

I wish each of you a Happy New Year!