1. Today was a big day in my little kidney world.
If you are keeping score (or a timeline) at home 😂, you know that on January 27th, the transplant team cut me loose and entrusted my post-transplant care to Kootenai Health's Dr. Scott Bieber. He was my pre-transplant kidney doctor, starting in January 2020.
Today was my doctor and patient reunion with Dr. Bieber.
We had a lot of ground to cover: he'd like to see my blood pressure come down, that is, have my systolic number be more consistently in the 120s; he'd like me to do my best to lose weight (again), but he and I both know that prednisone makes losing weight challenging; for the first time, protein is showing up, out of range, in my urine and our hope is that returning to taking Lisinopril might help that. The medication I take to prevent rejection of my new kidney could be contributing to this and to my slightly out of range calcium and glucose numbers, too.
Dr. Bieber wasn't alarmed, but we'll keep an eye on these things and see if they improve -- weight loss and lower blood pressure could help.
Overall, Dr. Bieber sees my condition as stable.
For now, I'll have blood work done twice over the next month and return to see Dr. Bieber on April 10th. I return for a visit to the transplant team on May 12 for a checkup to see how things are one year after the transplant.
It's possible that after that visit, Dr. Bieber will decide that I can go on a once every three month schedule with lab visits ---- hmmm, possibly monthly.
We'll see.
So, it would be good if by losing weight and lowering my blood pressure I could also bring down the protein, calcium, and glucose counts.
That would be ideal.
I'm not in any immediate danger and it would be really good if I can rectify these problems while they are minor.
2. I keep our largest lidded glass bowl in the fridge stocked with green salad. I make these salads with mixed greens and spinach leaves and any number of vegetables: green onion, red onion, mushrooms, celery, carrots, zucchini, yellow squash, red pepper, sugar peas, cauliflower, broccoli, and probably some other things.
I left my appointment with Dr. Bieber feeling buoyed, happy to be working with him again and satisfied that overall I'm doing very well.
In my uplifted mood, I stopped in at Pilgrim's in CdA and loaded up on produce and when I returned home I delivered the coup de grace. The salad bowl was empty. I washed and chopped vegetables and made a mammoth salad that I (and I hope Debbie) will munch on and that I'll replenish as needed.
3. I made one other notable purchase at Pilgrim's: I bought a package of Asiago Spinach Chicken Sausages. They were fully cooked, so I warmed them up while I roasted cauliflower and Yukon gold potato slices in the oven.
I will absolutely buy these sausages again. I loved the combination of cheese, spinach, and chicken and they worked beautifully with the roasted vegetables.
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