My faith isn't something I've often mentioned on this blog. I felt that talking about faith or politics might take away from the health and medical information I am trying to share with the transplant community. My faith is an important part of my life, and is the anchor that helps me to weather the storms that are part of the lung transplant package.
My walk with God has taken quite a few detours, but our Lord has always accepted me back. I’m sure most of us have seen the “Footprints in the Sand” poem on a card or poster. The author of the poem wrote about walking along the beach with our Lord and when looking back noticed that at their darkest hours there was only one set of footprints in the sand. When asked why there was only one set of footprints during their darkest days, the Lord answered, “When you saw only one set of footprints, it was then that I carried you”. In my case the single set of footprints was when I was off chasing something shiny or splashing in the waves or playing on the rocks. God never left me, but there were times when I sure did get distracted.
Receiving a bilateral lung transplant is a blessing, a true modern day medical miracle. I am here today due to a precious gift from my donor family, the skill and dedication of my transplant team, and the Grace of God. Each and every breath is a blessing.
If you've followed this blog, you know that my transplant has come with physical challenges. I’ve had a moderate/severe acute rejection, I’ve had a UTI go septic, I’ve gotten stomach contents in my lungs that triggered my chronic rejection. I’ve had a Nissen Fundoplication to prevent that from happening again. I’ve had a procedure that killed off my T-Cells to try and stop my chronic rejection. The procedure wasn’t as successful as we would have liked so I’m in a clinical trial that’s changing the DNA of my white blood cells. One side effect of the clinical trial was a bad pulmonary embolism (is there such a thing as a good PE?) and another was hard to control blood pressure. The upper lobe of my right lung has collapsed 4 times and we couldn’t get it reinflated after the last collapse. As most of you know, my most recent challenge was COVID. All told I’ve been in the hospital a lot, and the ICU three times.
How have I remained resilient and positive after all of these challenges? First is my faith. My faith in our Lord Jesus is stronger now than ever. My life is in his hands, and as I mention often, every breath is a blessing. My wife is another source of strength. She has Alzheimer's and the two of us make an awesome team. She has been with me every step of the way. The social isolation due to COVID was hard on my her and her disease started progressing fairly rapidly. Finding, and being able to move into our senior community has been another blessing, and an answer to prayer.
Speaking of COVID... that is one scary diagnosis for anyone with transplanted lungs. The mortality rate for lung transplant recipients pre-vaccine was around 40%, and those who survived usually had damage to their new lungs and and other major issues.
You can imagine my thoughts after I got the notification of my positive test. As our daughter drove me to the ER, I was more concerned than scared. I was thinking of my Sweetie and her future care. Under normal conditions, my Team would let her stay with me in the hospital, that was not possible with COVID. Thankfully our daughter was able to cancel a couple business trips and stay with her.Matthew 6:34 “Therefore do not worry about tomorrow, for tomorrow will worry about itself. Each day has enough trouble of its own.”My Team and I had planned on my coming home after 5 days in the hospital. Things seemed to be going well until my CT scan on Day 4. We found that the virus had started effecting my lungs, so it was going to be another 5 days at least. I was reading James, and this really hit home.
James 4:13-15 “13 - Now listen, you who say, “Today or tomorrow we will go to this or that city, spend a year there, carry on business and make money.” 14 - Why, you do not even know what will happen tomorrow. What is your life? You are a mist that appears for a little while and then vanishes. 15 - Instead, you ought to say, “If it is the Lord’s will, we will live and do this or that.””By the 8th day I started hoping that I’d get out soon. We had one little scare that turned out to be a malfunctioning meter. My lung function was stable and I was off of supplemental oxygen, it seemed all was going well and on 'my' schedule. That was until chest X-ray results from the morning came in. The X-ray showed that I had a pneumothorax on my right side. A pneumothorax means I had air trapped between my lung and chest wall. There were a couple of options for removing the air, the most likely being inserting a chest tube for a few days. That was disappointing to say the least. I spent the afternoon thinking, praying, and continuing to read the bible. The next morning came and the my daily X-ray was taken and it looked good to me, but I’m not a radiologist (I have literally seen 100's of my own lung images though). When I spoke with my doctors that afternoon they mentioned that the pneumothorax had disappeared, gone, no evidence that it had ever been there. They were surprised and said they didn’t know how that happened. I told them it was prayer. I was discharged on the 10th day and my Team is very happy with my recovery. We are still working on some minor issues, but I feel great.
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