Plans Fell into Place

I survived! What a day! Yesterday, we were both up and out early as the housekeepers were due, I needed to stop at CVS and get some gas before my hair appointment. From hair to Jeannie just a block away, we arrived to rehab early to a nice surprise.

Rob, who had his lung transplants in October, was back in the class before us for the first time and will re-join our class in four weeks. The last time I had seen him, he was extremely underweight, newly out of the hospital from an infection and waiting for lungs. Yesterday, I had walked into his class to fill Jeannie's water bottle for her, we spotted each other and he came over to speak with me. Hug or not to hug? I have always heard that you don't hug newly transplanted patients as they are on prednisone and other drugs and rather vulnerable to infections. He hugged me! I was really surprised.

For the transplants, he was in the hospital for thirteen days and also confirmed, what I had heard from others, that he had no pain other than at the surgery site, which ended up becoming infected. He needed surgery to clean it up, they set up the "snake-like" wound vac then he healed completely.

He was back to work. Isn't that amazing? He said he had his life back. In another month, he will be allowed to write the donor family. Already, he has joined a group at his hospital to work with other people and feels a huge need to treat this gift responsibly.

Jeannie and I worked out in our class, left early so Michael and I were able to arrive to our PFAC board meeting at my university hospital right on time. Again, I can't discuss anything from the meeting but we left once again, feeling like we contributed to the beginning of the process to fix two large problems.

Today, mom has her shot in her eye then we will go to lunch somewhere. As she said, going to her eye clinic is like going to visit friends. When we are spotted, the staff will come into the waiting room to hug her and to say hello. She loves it so much that she isn't bothered by the actual shot in her eye!