Biopsy results - A1 rejection detected

The title may sound bad but this is a low level minor rejection Jane has going on detected by the biopsy.

Not the news we wanted to hear. However this happens to just about everyone within the first year of lung transplant and is very treatable.  It will be treated with an aggressive dose of steroids which Jane started this past Wednesday.  She is tolerating this well with almost no side effects.  It has jump started her appetite (one of the side effects) which for her is a good thing for gaining weight.

We have a home health-care nurse giving the steroid IV a home so we didn’t have to go into the hospital. Overall, Jane is doing well and continues to get better. 

The following link explains her rejection well. See the section where they talk about “minimal rejection is graded as A1”. This is Jane’s case.

https://secondwindstl.org/who-we-are/articles-by-dr-hacheem/rejection-and-lung-transplantation/

Clinic 7, 8 and the dreaded bronchoscopy

Jane and I on Christmas Eve

Wow sorry I see it has been 2 months since my last update.  Since then a lot of things have happen all good for the most part.  At this time we have had two more clinic visits and survived the dreaded bronchoscopy! Clinic visit number 7 was in mid December and number 8 was this past Wednesday...both went well.  Jane’s breathing numbers continue to improve.  We passed on the big family gatherings to avoid germs and had small gatherings with friends.

 We put up simple decorations this year for Christmas and still have everything up now. We plan on keeping them up until late winter. 
 

Tiny Christmas Tree
 

On December 26th the Oxygen company came by and took away all of our oxygen equipment!  What a milestone this is. Jane has not been on or need oxygen for the past couple of months but we kept it around because it made us both feel better. We have relied on extra oxygen for so long, it didn’t feel safe not having it around.  But by now we have gotten pleasantly used to it.


On issue we have had, over the past few weeks in the evenings Jane has developed an annoying tingling and itching all over her skin, especially her feet.  This is very uncomfortable and have been making her evenings not so nice.  The doctors have prescribed something for this we will try it this week.Because of this she has been unable to wear her BiPap Machine at night.  Thankfully her breathing and CO2 levels are doing just fine. with the use of the BiPap.  After talking about this in our recovery group we are finding that this tingle and itch is common reaction to some of the anti-rejection medicine.

The dreaded bronchoscopy was done this past Tuesday Jan 12.  We were very nervous going into it as the last time this was done she had to be put back on a ventilator.  But that was 6 months ago and she is a lot stronger now. Yep and everything went fine she woke up from it breathing on her own.  The took samples from the lungs (biopsy) to test for any rejection. We don’t have the results yet but we all expect them to be fine.
 

There were also no infections in her lungs so at the 6 month mark this means she can stop taking her antifungal medications. woo hoo that is 4 less pills to take a day!   And finally after ultrasound testing all of her past blood clots gone. This made the doctors take her of the blood thinner shots in the stomach twice a day (those shots were very painful) woo hoo again!

I will update the blog again after our next Doctor's visit Clinic number 9 in mid February

Last but not least I would to include some littler box art work from one our cats Heidi (a male cat).  He peed a facsimile of Reindeer this Christmas season. :). So either her really likes Christmas or he is just being a Scrooge...."Bah hum bug, I piss on Rudolph the red nosed reindeer!".