11 and Counting

Welcome to the weekly blog of a Donate Life Northwest volunteer who has graciously offered to tell the story of her journey through the organ transplant process. She posts to this blog every Wednesday so you can ride this interesting, bumpy road with her.

We are at 11 months – yahoo!! Getting close to 1 year. An anniversary, an important one according to OHSU. I am getting a long list of appointments to set up: angiogram (yuck) instead of a biopsy, which means a groin stick and all-day lay down, echo, bone density, yadda, yadda. But the good news is after this one, the biopsies go to every 3 months. I know at least the parking guy will miss me! The last biopsy result was a ‘1.’ We were hoping for a ‘0’ – hasn’t been one for a very long time. However, it also means I’m not overly immunosuppressed, and that’s good in the long run for all those other bad things. But you know my mantra by now – it’s all good and it is 11 months!

The author is a heart failure patient going through the post-transplant process. She also is a nurse and former hospital administrator. She would like to thank Donate Life Northwest for permitting her to post her observations on the Donate Life Northwest website. She also wants to emphasize that all opinions and views stated in the posts are her own and not those of Donate Life Northwest.

Tags: heart transplant, Hypertrophic Cardiomyopathy, organ donation