1. I've had a lot of blood work done at the Kellogg LabCorp and I learned early on that, when possible, if the blood work order came from outside the Heritage Health world, it's always best if I bring a copy of the order, in hand, to the lab. Indeed, today, when I checked in at the front desk, my order from Dr. Khan at the Sacred Heart transplant program was not in their stack of orders. An order that will work in July from Dr. Bieber was there, but not the one I needed today.
So I simply said, "No problem. I'm carrying an order" and about ten minutes later, Krysti called me back and everything went smoothly.
Now, the transplant program and I will see how much time elapses before LabCorp reports the results. They might come on Tuesday, but the good news is that since my numbers have been good and stable, getting the results immediately is not as urgent as it was in the early post-surgery days.
2. As I knew would be true, I've lost a lot of the physical stamina I built up when I was exercising 4-6 times a week in the months leading up to the transplant.
Today, I figured out a ten minute loop to walk at the Kellogg City Park.
To start, I'll walk for ten minutes -- that's what I did today -- and hope that before too long I'll feel strong enough to do the loop twice and walk for twenty minutes and keep slowly building more stamina.
When I met with transplant team members as they prepared me to be discharged from Sacred Heart back on May 14th, the dietician told me this was no time to be trying to lose weight. My healing and recovering body needs calories and especially needs protein.
It's common for transplant recipients to put on weight after the surgery.
I certainly have.
So, I'll continue to eat plenty to help fuel my recovery and healing, but I'm also hoping that getting this walking routine underway might at least help slow down the weight gain until I can return to regular and more vigorous exercise -- but that won't, as I understand it, be until the fall.
3. I had thawed a package of party chicken wings. Even though family dinner on Sunday featured chicken, Debbie and I decided to have chicken for dinner again tonight.
So I fried the wings, made brown rice, steamed frozen cauliflower and broccoli, and made a fun and tasty chicken mushroom gravy to put over the rice and to put on the chicken if we wanted.
I was really happy with how smooth and delicious the gravy turned out. I love gravy, but I don't fix it often and having gravy as part of our meal was a special treat.
No comments:
Post a Comment