Tuesday, June 24, 2025

Three Beautiful Things 06-23-2025: Addressing Early Rejection, What's Next, Satisfaction and a Great Harvest Sandwich

1. I drove to Spokane late this morning for a 1:00 appointment with Dr. Murad at the Providence Sacred Heart Transplant Clinic. 

Protein has leaked into my urine from my new kidney. 

Although they contemplated letting this development ride for a while and see what happens, in the end, Dr. Bieber and the transplant team talked with each other and agreed I should have a biopsy performed on the kidney and see what shows up. That happened Wednesday. 

Inflammation showed up, signaling that my immune system is most likely sending antibodies to the new kidney, a sign of early rejection. So, to slow down the inflammation, I had steroid infusions on Friday and Saturday. 

Today, as our appointment developed, the transplant doctor, Dr. Murad, instructed me not to worry. Early rejection can be and nearly always is treated and fixed. 

Doing so, requires some investigation. 

In order to gain a more detailed understanding of what's going on, Dr. Murad sent me to the lab for blood work that will tell him if those antibodies are active, whether the BK or CVM viruses are poking around in my system (tests on Friday of last week said NO they aren't), and a couple of other tests. 

When I take increased dosages of anti-suppressive drugs, the viruses can get frisky and exploit my decrease in immunity. 

Results will arrive later in the week and if those antibodies need to be treated, I'll go back to Infusion Services for an IV of medicine (not steroidal) to get after them. 

Aside from some mild heartburn, now fading insomnia, and weight gain (steroids do that), I feel fine. 

My immune system might be suspicious of this new organ, but my new kidney, according to Friday's blood work, is doing a very good job filtering my blood, of doing its work. Those numbers looked good over the weekend. 

2. So what's next? 

* Close observation. 

* Weekly labs starting next week. 

* Increased dosage of the immunosuppressive drug Myfortic with the hope the viruses won't exploit this suppression. 

* Tricky balance. On the one hand, we want to suppress rejection. On the other, we don't want to lose too much virus protection. 

* Possible infusion. Test results will determine if we need to make this move. 

* Return to Dr. Bieber on July 17.

* Return to Dr. Murad at Sacred Heart on July 24. 

* Repeat, on the 24th, the immunologic blood tests I had done after my appointment this afternoon. 

3. I left the Transplant Clinic and lab services feeling good -- the medical pros are not referring to my current situation as a setback, but as a complication that they/we can address. 

I enjoy talking with the pros who help me at Sacred Heart; likewise, I enjoy my visits with Dr. Bieber and his nurses at Kootenai Health. 

The pros carrying out the other services -- biopsy, infusions, labs, all of them -- have been calm, kind, efficient, friendly, and a pleasure to work with. 

To increase my satisfaction even more, I left Sacred Heart and drove to Great Harvest and ordered a turkey goddess sandwich on Dakota bread and a molasses ginger cookie. 

My next pursuit of satisfaction will be to sleep and rest at home. 

Unless I go in for an infusion, I'll have about a week off now from driving to appointments and having needles of one sort or another inserted into my body. 

I'll be tapering off the Prednisone blast this week with the hope of sleeping better. 

Maybe I'll return to the book,  Lonesome Dove

I'm eager to see what those fellas decide to do with the idea of heading to Montana. 



No comments: