7/2/01—from
Dan Martini:
Surgery lasted 3 hours, but as they were severly backlogged(4
transplants that day) I was in pre-op, surgery and post-op for
a total of 11 hours.
BAD bumps
I got morning sickness everyday until they took me off of grancyclovir
and prednisone at the same time. Timing IS VERY IMPORTANT with
the meds.
One of my chest tubes leaked air, and finally popped out when
I coughed, leaving about 1.5 inches of tube in me, and me going
gnutz trying to hold my vent opening closed. This left me with
a 1.8 cm pneumothorax, which turned out to be a VERY GOOD thing.
Two of the people that were transplanted before me wound up in
long-term rehab, this I found depressing.
Morphene STOPS peristalsis . . . the normal gurgle and squrgle
of the small and large intestine. I couldn’t get a bowel
movement for 9 days.
GOOD bumps:
A pneumothorax in my chest settled against the right pulmonary
artery. Every time my heartbeat went above 140, I would get this
terrible pain that said “DON’T DOOOO THAT!”
I am able to do almost EVERYTHING I want to do. I can make use
of my second chance.There was virtually no pain, I had to fight
with the MDs to get them to cut the morphene dosage down.
I am independant of others for assistance to do things, I can
help others.
I would do it all again in a heartbeat. The time I’ve had
so far is of such superior quality that I am satisfied if this
is all the time or quality that I get.
Sep
2001—a significant bump from Dan Martini
Short
version of what happened: On Sunday, Sept 9, I had a 9% drop in
FEV1 on my nitely spirometry. Figured I wuz just tired, so waited
till morning. On the 10th, FEV1 was down only 3% of what it had
been, so I figured wuz not a big deal. On Monday nite, FEV1 dropped
11%, so I knew I should call in and planned to do that in the
AM. On Tuesday, I woke up feeling like microwaved crap in a punching
bag—aches, fever, 23% drop in FEV1. Picked up the phone
to call in to transplant center and just as the operator answered,
I saw the 2nd plane hitting the WTC. . . . I hung up the phone,
KNOWING there would be no flights out for a week. Called my local
pulmo, who had me come down and they did a thorocentesis, drained
180 ccs out of chest . . . also poked, nicked, severed a vein
which got things going worse. On Thursday, I had to be driven
into the hosp. FEV1 down from 72% to 39%. No planes allowed to
leave Omaha ’til Saturday. My pulmo and thoracic MDs weren’t
there and I got some jokers who, against my express instructions,
stopped giving me cyclosporin!!!! (guess what happened!). They
had me on three abxs, two of which beat the heck out of my kidneys,
one that smacks the liver. On Sunday, I got my wife to bring my
cyclo in and started it [AMA] . . . but, it was already too late.
On Sunday afternoon, my pulmo came in, heard what was going on,
called the transplant center (which the quacks HAD NOT done) and
then he called around and got the travel folk to come in and get
me an air ambulance on Monday. THANK GOD for doctors that treat
patients. Anyway, I got to Madison, where they put a chest vent
in immediately, and drained off 450 ccs of fluid. This was better,
but only temporarily, as the bleeder was still active. However,
it got enough fluid out so they could do a bronch and found that
I was in A-2 rejection.
Transplant
coordinator and couple of MDs said they shuddered when they found
out about the cyclosporin. Sooo, I got tons of abxs again, a second
vent tube, and was scheduled for operation. It’s called
a decordication where they open the chest a little (on the old
scars) stick a scrubber pad, or sometimes fingers, into the chest,
and rub off all the fibrotic material left over from the dried
blood. They also stuck a little camera and tools in and sealed
off the bleeder. The surgeon that did the procedure said he’s
done several, but this is the first one he’s done where
the lung popped back up when he removed the fibroses. X-rays showed
that the lung inflated to 90+ percent immediately.
Fun
stuff . . . the decordication procedure is MORE painful than transplant,
and with the umpteen thousand units of methyl pred they used to
whomp on the A2, takes a lot longer to heal. So, I’ve seen
the X-rays and lab reports, am able to get up to 2300 on the spirometer,
and can walk (slowly) without getting into distress, I gotta believe
them . . . but I feel like a water balloon that was used in a
major league baseball game!!!!!!! Recovery should be excellent,
but WILL be slower, (unless I don’t slow down and
rip everything out!) I just can’t stand having other people
do for me. I’ll be doing better once I don’t need
10 mg of oxycodone every 4 hrs.
