The Life and Lungs of Kim

I don’t like running. Never have, despite playing soccer all through my youth. And now, as an almost 43-year old mom with someone else’s lungs in my chest cavity, running seems practically impossible (high functioning lungs = kind of critical for running, no?). There are many physical barriers on top of my already present mental barriers. I feel tightness across my chest still. My entire body suffered from a lack of oxygen for over six years and I don’t really know what the lasting effects of that are though I do know at the time, it was awful, I was in right heart failure and I lost a lot of strength. I've done short sprints maybe three times in the past two years and probably jogged a total of 300 yards. And, as I may have mentioned, I don’t like running. But I’m curious to see what these lungs and this body can do so  I went ahead and signed up to do a half marathon in June .  To be fair, I am only committing to run/WALKING it so I’m not trying...

I’m just over two years out from my double lung transplant now and yesterday I had my regular series of tests and appointments at the UW Lung Transplant Clinic. My blood work looks good (we’re mostly looking for high creatinine levels in my kidneys, an unfortunate side effect of my immunosuppressant medications, and can be a sign of rejection). My lung function test (where I blast a breath into a machine and squeeze it all out until my tummy hurts) was the highest it's ever been. Nothing looks weird in my chest X-ray and overall, things are great. I do have to keep an eye on my bone density levels – another common occurrence post-transplant is bone loss/ osteopenia due to the high amounts of Prednisone given to me in the hospital (I went home on 70 mg of Prednisone a day; today, I take 5 mg and will take that for the rest of my life). The hope is that with all the calcium, vitamin D and magnesium oxide I take every day, the osteopenia that has shown up in my hips will st...

Another milestone in my post-lung transplant life reached yesterday: I forgot which floor to go to at the University of Washington medical center from the parking garage. For 8 years, I spent months’ worth of time at that dang place, from my frequent Pulmonary Hypertension specialist appointments to my biannual echo cardiograms…and blood tests, lung function tests, support group meetings, X-rays, many ER visits, week-longs stays, right heart catheterizations and more. Of course, once I got my bearings, it came back to me and I practically bounded from appointment to appointment because one thing I never did pre-transplant is bound. Next time, skipping. 21 months out from my double lung transplant and all my tests look great, no worries, and I even was able to get rid of one of my twice daily medications so now I’m *only* taking 12 meds a day. Four of those are lifelong anti-rejection/anti-infection meds and the other 8 are to combat the side effects of those four. It’s a lot of pil...

Hey! Look! It’s a blog on which I used to write! My life is full of the ordinary – shuttling kids to and fro and trying to time it to make the NPR top of the hour headline news, making meals, watching TV with Scot (current favorites: Justified and Archer), helping at the school and PTA, avoiding housework, the occasional special outing with family and friends and planning for future excursions. It’s everything life should be but it’s nothing to write about and so I don’t. But occasionally, in the midst of the mundane, a moment catches me off guard and I am flooded with intense emotions, memories and gratitude. Today was an ordinary lung transplant clinic appointment – it’s been four months since I've last been there (for those who are counting, I am 16 months post-transplant). After a dropping off a grumpy Jack at his morning band practice and fighting awful traffic (an aside: it never ceases to amaze me how BAD WE ARE AT DRIVING IN THE RAIN. Seriously, it’s like everyone is s...

Yesterday, I started a blog post for my one-year lungaversary cause, you know, it’s a big deal getting this year wrapped up. However, today I spent the morning at the University of Washington for my one-year check-up and now I’m in a different emotional state than I was yesterday. So all that work is now merely a personal journal entry and not for thine eyes. Let’s pretend it was profound and poetic, shall we? I had all my regular appointments (x-ray, blood draw, lung function, transplant clinic) but it was extra meaningful for three reasons: one, today was the actual anniversary of the surgery. Two, my mom was with me. And three, we went up to the ICU and had a looksie.   Going to the Cardiothoracic ICU today was the end of the journey of Sick Kim.  It was wonderful for me to walk through those doors, unassisted, looking like the healthy person I now am. I stood outside my hospital room door for a while, remembering those five weeks I spent in there (then transf...

Last weekend, I was all fired up to write a blog post…but then, my computer went kaput so that put a damper on things.  And aside: I know many of you think I married Scot for his keen wit, his loving sensitivity, his ability to express his emotions…but no.  The truth is out: I married him for his computer prowess.  Seriously, how do you people DO IT, those of you without a honey (or at least a close family member) to assess the severity of the problem, grab a kid (with the promise of a hot dog) and head down to Fry’s and buy a new computer then proceed to transfer all the data from one computer to the other?  Put one more item down on my gratitude list. The reason I was fired up was because I had just come home from a 5-day vacation with the kids and Jen and her two kids and I rocked it. Raaaaaahhhhhked it.   We went to Silverwood Theme Park resort in Idaho – a 5 ½ hour drive away.  The last theme park I did was Disneyland in 2008 and back then, ...

Six months ago today, I received two wonderful, life-saving lungs.  It still catches me off guard that I can run errands in the morning and still have energy for a walk in the evening.  I can bend down to pick up a pile of clothes from the floor and not be out of breath on my way back up.  Scot and the kids have to catch up to ME when we’re walking together.  I can hop in the shower without all the effort to protect my central IV site.   I’m still seeing people for the first time since surgery and I see them try to place the differences in me: my coloring, the shape of my face, my shorter hair (have I mentioned my hair's starting to fall out?), the scars on my neck – it’s all just a little different than the Kim of last fall. My body is still in healing mode.  Although I deal with many side effects from my 17+ daily meds, my biggest issue right now is combating the migraine headaches I’m getting.  Migraines occur, in the 20% of the population who are...