5 Year Lung Transplant Anniversary and Kidneys Fail
At age 29, I celebrated my 5 year lung transplant anniversary. My parents threw me a big party at the house. The day before, I was called into the lung transplant clinic to receive some more blood. I hadn’t been bleeding, but my hemoglobin was low again, due to my kidneys not working properly. It was a great party and I was so glad to see all the people that came by to help me celebrate. I was so grateful for all the support and it made me very emotional. I felt really well that day too!
It might have been as soon as the very next day that I began to feel quite ill, but it wasn’t my lungs this time. From this point, I rarely drank or ate anything at all. I spent my days in bed. I had both fatigue and malaise. I was perpetually itchy and Benadryl didn’t help. It was a different kind of itch. Like a creeping, crawling sensation, an itch that couldn’t really be stopped or scratched away. My legs and feet were extremely swollen and my foot didn’t even fit into any of my sneakers. I woke up to pee about 10 times in the night. This went on for maybe two to three weeks until my doctor called and said my blood work showed my creatinine had risen to a 3. He said I needed to be admitted into the hospital with the hopes that flushing my kidneys with IV fluids would help lower my creatinine. I was grateful because I knew I needed something to get me better, but I also knew this was going to be a very long stay. I knew I was in for another battle.
(One of my swollen feet.)
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