Three Months or 3000 Miles, Routine Clinic Visit 7/7/16

Right after you are released from the hospital following a lung transplant, you spend a lot of time at your Transplant Clinc with your Team.  They are checking your progress, taking lots of labs, and dialing in your meds.  With my Team, once you reach 1 year post-transplant, you are on a once every three months schedule of routine visits.  Yesterday was my day.

It was an awesome day at Clinic.

First, my Pulmonary Function Test (PFT's) results were spectacular.  They were so good that the tech who performed the tests had to triple check all of the data that was entered into the computer to ensure she didn't make an error.

FVC = Forced Vital Capacity.  It is basically my lung capacity.  It was almost 6 liters, and was 112% of predicted for a person of my sex/weight/height and race.  

FEV1 = Forced Expiatory Volume 1.  This is basically how much air I can forcibly expel in the first second.  126% of predicted is pretty much unheard of for an IPF transplant recipient.  

I do believe that my continued improvements in lung capacity are due in a very large part to the hard style breathing techniques used during my kettlebell swings.

I haven't seen the results of all my labs yet, but have heard from my coordinator today and know that there are no alarms going off and that there are no changes needed to my main anti-rejection medications.

I was able to talk with the Team and get two of my meds reduced.  My Metoprolol was reduced from 50 mg three times/day to twice/day and Prednisone reduced from 15 mg/day to 10 mg/day.  This should help with some of the mental side effects I've been dealing with.  The Metroprolol is a Beta Blocker and is used to counter the side effects of a couple of my other meds.  So long as my blood pressure and pulse stay reasonable I will be able to stay on this reduce dose.  

I was also able to grab an image of x-rays of my pre and post transplant lungs, thought you guys might be interested in seeing the difference.

The IPF lungs x-ray was taken two months prior to my procedure.  The new lungs image is from yesterday.  

It was a good day at the clinic.  A year and a half post-transplant and my lung capacity keeps improving.  I can't express just how much I, and my entire family, appreciate this wonderful gift that our donor family offered.