Monday, March 16, 2009

30 going on 23

Today is my three month anniversary so I thought it would be a good time to crack a cold.......sprite, and add a post.  By now Im sure most people dont check this that often, especially with my inconsistiencies keeping it up to date.  But I am going to keep putting random posts on here from time to time.  Maybe for no other reason than someday a person with similar situations can have a reference and actually hear the good the bad and the ugly first hand.  Looking back that is the one thing that I wish I would have had, a reference.  I didnt know what was normal and what was abnormal.  Every experience was new to me and new to every one else that was close to me.  In the five years that I have known this was pretty unavoidable I have met a total of two people that had a kidney transplant.  I took as much info from them as I could but you dont really know the questions to ask until you are there and the whole thing becomes such a whirlwind there is no time to ask "all" the questions.  So if one person gets something out of this for their own experience, Im stoked.  

Life has completely changed as I know it.  I am at the point now where I am seeing the benefits of the tranplant beyond what a sheet from the lab tells me.  I have more energy than I have had in five years, my attitude on life has done a 180, my eating habits are better, I exercise more in a day than I used to in a week, better color, way more patience.....etc, etc.  This whole experience has done as much if not more for my mental state than it has for my physical.  I have fallen in love with living in Maui again.  Its kind of like when I moved here 6.5 years ago and I was enjoying all the reasons I decided to come here.  All I need to do now is get the moped back, put the Outback uniform on, and get all the MN boys back here to enjoy it with me.   Of course I would have to put the 2am shifts at Fish and Game and the 4am shifts at my house behind me.  Not a problem.  

As far as from a medical perspective, things are great.  They have reduced my trips to the lab to once a week and my doctor visits to bi-weekly.  My creatinine level still goes back and forth slightly but its always in a good range and they have said at this point it becomes a feel thing.  You feel bad, find out why.  You feel good, appreciate it.  To say that Im 100% would be a stretch because I tried to do 20 pushups today. Lets just say I was closer to 10 than 20.  But I do feel 300% better than I have in a long time.  

Tomorrow I go to the doctor for my three month checkup.  Im assuming things are good.  I did also learn the power of positive thinking.  If my numbers arent good Ill be surprised, but there has been bigger bumps in the road before. Aloha.