‘health’ Archives
Playing the blood clot card
I used that phrase a couple of days ago. As it turns out, if there was a literal blood clot card, it might look something like this. This is actually from a prescription for a compression garment used to treat thrombosis. They do make them for men, though you can’t [Read More]
The good kind of blood clot
I should follow up after my last post. It felt like a waste of an afternoon to stop by urgent care and then Duke Radiology to find out that I’ve got superficial thrombophlebitis, or a blood clot in a vein close to the surface of the skin. I know, I needed to have deep [Read More]
Sorry beats safe
I shouldn’t have called the CIGNA 24-hour nurse hotline for advice. Of course they would tell me to go to the ER. I should’ve just gone to bed as I had planned. But the swollen leg veins just didn’t seem right. The paranoid internet bulletin-board-posters [Read More]
More fun with CMV
When I landed at Miami International Airport on Thursday morning en route to Cancun, I made a call to the nephrology office in Charlotte to return the voicemail they had left on Wednesday. They had my latest CMV results. Despite my intensive course of Valcyte, my CMV level [Read More]
Cytomegalovirus
http://www.mayoclinic.com/health/cmv/DS00938/DSECTION=symptoms CMV. A common complication for immunosuppressed folks. Fun stuff. Totally treatable. It should become inactive with medication, but still. I think I’m experiencing an anti-placebo effect. Now that [Read More]
Things I Did On My Summer Vacation #3 New Bike
Back in May 1996, I acquired two expensive but worthwhile items. One was Aremid. I suppose he was worth it; the jury’s still out. Just kidding, Big Baby Aremid. I also bought a bike. I was living off campus and had a job on campus, maybe less than a mile away. Bike [Read More]
A kidney transplant update because I don’t think I’ve done one in awhile
Actually, it seems to have been about three weeks. No news was good news, I guess you could say. My creatinine dipped below 2.0, down to 1.9. Still not great, but less worrisome. I’m only getting blood work once a week, and I don’t know what last [Read More]
Big Gulp
I feel like there’s a bit of pressure to come up with a post filled with post-transplant gravitas. I should be writing about the extraordinary circumstance of having received a kidney transplant and how life has some grand new meaning. In time, perhaps. For now, I can [Read More]
Overly Dramatic Highlights from Day 3
Getting two rounds of blood transfusions today due to low hemoglobin. Going right into my comfy neck IV. [Read More]
New Kidney
It really hasn’t hit me yet. Developments unfolded quickly. Late Sunday night into Monday morning, I had just a couple of hours to figure out a month’s worth of pet-sitting (or at least take a first crack at it), figure out what to say to my manager at work, and [Read More]
