Lifesavers for Latasha

On Tuesday of this week, Chris and I headed back up to Cleveland for all-day appointments at Cleveland Clinic on Wednesday.

We started out with blood work. Here we are sitting in the waiting area.

Next, we climbed the stairs to the second floor for my chest x-ray. These are the stairs that you have to be able to walk up after your transplant as a progress step in the recovery. I think it took me three or four months after, maybe longer, before I could walk up them, very slowly and taking a break on the landings. Now, I’m able to just walk up them normally.

After the x-ray, we went back downstairs to have an echocardiogram to check my heart. Then, we went up to the 9th Floor to do my spirometry test to check my breathing. Next, it was time to meet with the transplant team on the 12th Floor to go over the tests.

My x-ray looked great. There was no fluid or signs of infection. My echocardiogram showed my heart is functioning normally. My breathing test was the highest it’s been so far. My lungs are working normally. Everything shows my heart and lungs are working as they should with no signs of rejection. Here we are in the waiting room for the transplant office. I also took some photos of the view from the 12th Floor.

After meeting with the transplant team, we had to walk the Skyway to another building to have an esophagram done to check my throat and esophagus to see if they could find a reason why I keep getting sick. After the esophagram, we then walked to another building to meet with a nurse practitioner with the GI team to go over the results. The esophagram showed I do have some dysmotility in my esophagus, but it should not be causing me to keep getting sick.

So, why do I keep getting sick? No one seems to know. Chris has done some research and found some info on hormone levels and the transplant medications possibly causing sickness. We brought it up to my transplant team, and they said it’s something we should explore. They said they aren’t familiar with it, mostly because the majority of women who have heart and lungs transplants are already past menopause. They are referring me to an OBGYN to see if it could be something related to hormones.

As I have said previously, I am able to tell a huge difference in walking and breathing. We didn’t take any breaks walking to the other buildings, and I wasn’t out of breath during any of the walks. Chris also mentioned that I was walking at a much faster pace than I had in the past.

I still have “moon face” from the prednisone I take every day. Most people say it goes away after being on the lowest dose, but I’ve been on the lowest dose for about a year now, and my face is still swollen all the time. I hope it goes away soon. I guess if it doesn’t go away, though, it’s just another reminder of everything I’ve been through to get to this point.

Overall, my transplant team is pleased with my progress. They said I am now able to have appointments every four to six months instead of every three to four months, which is great. So, my next appointments will be in July.

I am finally starting to feel like my normal self again. I have the desire to cook and bake again and hope to start doing that again very soon. I have been reading books again. I have been doing some writing, mostly just thoughts and ideas on my phone, but I do hope to put everything together into a book one day.

We’d like to thank you all, again, for continuing to be interested in our journey and supporting us through your comments, texts, etc. We are definitely in a much better place now than we were this time last year. The first year is definitely hard, much harder than either of us expected. Now that we are almost to the two-year mark, we are very hopeful of our future.

I think of my donor on a daily basis, multiple times each day, but specifically at night when I’m about to go to sleep. That’s when I feel my heartbeat the most and think of the person who made it possible for me to be able to breathe easier and better. I hope his/her family knows how grateful I am. I still haven’t received a response to the letter I wrote, and I am still debating on whether to write another one. I may for the two-year anniversary.

We hope you are all having a nice winter. We have gotten more snow this year than we have in the last few years, so it’s been a cold and snowy winter. We are ready for some warmer days.

Until the next update, enjoy your day and don’t take a single breath for granted!