Seven Years Later

It's been seven years since my bilateral lung transplant, and wow, a lot can happen when you have an extra seven years of life.

I've been able to watch grandchildren become young men and women, and hopefully have some small positive influence in their lives. I've made new friends and reconnected with an old one. My walk with our Lord is much closer than it has ever been, and I'm in a really good place inside my head.

If you've been reading along, you know that there have also been some challenges along the way. Most of the challenges are part of the lung transplant package, others were quite unexpected. Who would have thought we'd lose over 800,000 people to a virus here in the United States, and people would still be resistant to doing anything help at least slow the spread. Or, that my wife could be diagnosed with Alzheimer's in the same year that I was transplanted. Life is interesting :) We live in a senior community that can supply the extra help that we sometimes need, and we are enjoying being here much more than I ever would have expected. I am the youngest in the community, there are couples here that have been married longer than I have been alive. I'm learning a lot.

I just finished up my transplant annual exams the other day. No matter how the year's been going, I look forward to these scans, labs and tests, they are a good spot-check of my health and where it is trending. My chest CT scan is a compact picture of what my wonderful lungs have endured, each finding a reminder of earlier challenges. Thankfully this latest scan didn't identify anything new :)

Lungs and pleura: Postsurgical change of bilateral lung transplant. Mild posterior right pleural thickening, unchanged. No pneumothorax or pleural effusion. No central endobronchial mass. Complete collapse and bronchiectasis of right upper lobe, unchanged.

Subtle patchy ground glass opacities of each lung base persists but have decreased. There is a mild degree of mosaic attenuation of the lungs on expiratory imaging, similar to previous studies. Hyperlucency of right lower lobe most evident involving superior segment, unchanged. Minimal subpleural reticulation at each lung base similar to previous studies.

Focal, branching opacity at ventral lingula adjacent to chronic subsegmental atelectasis or scarring, is likely related to endobronchial mucous plugging, unchanged compared with previous studies. No consolidation. A few scattered small bilateral pulmonary nodules measure 0.4 cm or less in diameter and are unchanged. No new nodules.

The ground glass opacities are left over from my COVID infection earlier in the year. The "but have decreased" note is pretty awesome. 

I hadn't mentioned this, but right before Christmas I had an acute rejection episode. It was a minor rejection and was resolved with prayer and pulse steroids. I wasn't really sure just how my full series of pulmonary function testing would turn out. I went into "the box" expecting a loss in lung function, just was not sure how significant the loss would be. 

I started writing down all of my PFT results, but doubt many would really be interested. If you want to know any of my numbers, ask in the comments and I'll be happy share them. They are down a bit from last year, but for the most part higher than when I began my ECP treatments. All things considered, they were better than expected.

One really good test result was my six minute walk test (6MWT). I was able to walk significantly longer than last year. As a matter of fact, my distance was back up to where it was in 2019.  That's pretty awesome. We do a lot of walking in our senior community, along with some low intensity cardio. It seems to have done some good.

I still have to get my bone density scan early next month, and a colonoscopy. I need to get off my rear and schedule that one, not something I enjoy. It's kind of like a tooth that should be extracted. I need to get it done, just really don't like the idea of volunteering for another procedure and more pain (the tooth extraction, not the colonoscopy),

I didn't do my Extracorporeal Photopheresis treatment in December. It was due about the time I was having my acute rejection, another thing I need to get scheduled.

I just counted and I have 34 different lab results from this year's annual so far. Quite a few of them have a little red exclamation mark indicating they are out of spec. That's one reason all of my medical is through one Team. My labs look really weird for a normal healthy person, but are routine for me.  Some normal results from this years labs include liver function (yeah), cholesterol, Vit D, testosterone,  and A1C. Magnesium is low, but I would have a hard time supplementing with even more than I do now. I'll look into changing brands a see what happens.  That worked with my Vit D.  I was always low until I found a brand that worked for me.

This post is just kinda rambling on so I'll finish up here. It is awesome to still be here 7 years after my expiration date, not just here but thriving. We are blessed.

Have questions about my medications? Lung transplant annual exams? Lung transplant and Covid now that we have vaccines? Any questions about lung transplant, please ask in the comments or send an email. I'll be happy to give an honest answer from my experience and perspective.

Have a great year.