Today was our first post-discharge follow up. Normal routine drive into the city, a few more bumps and a lot more traffic than normal but we arrived. The traffic was actually horrendous today for no reason but isn’t that how traffic always is? Always some idiot in the front of the line holding everyone up and completely and blissfully unaware of the day ruining he or she might be igniting for the rest of the world.

We saw the whole team except two of our favorites!!! Dr.Kim and Josan- both were not in the office today but we got to check in with a few others that have gotten us precisely to where we are standing today.

Our first visit was with Dr.T, Mom’s surgeon. She’s awesome, has a positive attitude and has a good dark dry humor. Extremely surprising and rare in the medical field to have a surgeon with good bedside manner. Mom has been lucky enough to have two now. Shoutout to Dr.Hernando.

In our meeting with Dr.T we went over the incision itself and how it was looking. Staples for approximately two more weeks but overall her shiny Mercedes emblem is looking ay ok. No signs of infection, just a little “oozy” still, but with the amount of small pockets of ascites in her abdomen it is normal. (In simple terms: ascites is the fluid retention and buildup you get in your abdomen as a side effect of cirrhosis/liver disease)

She was given the directions to shower everyday, keep her surgical site clean and stop itching her wrists because she can’t keep them wrapped like a mental patient all day. They think part of the itching is a medication reaction- pain meds/muscle relaxers, so we are hoping this resolves itself soon.

Up next is usually our transplant coordinator, Josan. The dynamic duo of her and Dr.Kim have really made this experience truly something so meaningful to all of us, we can’t thank them enough. Today, we had a lovely fill-in for Josan, we ran through Monday’s labs and some of her anti-rejection meds were upped because her numbers aren’t where they need to be yet. Perfectly normal, these next few months are total adjustment periods… for all of us.

The third person we saw was nutrition. Katie’s always so cheery and she really drives it home reminding mom that it’s SO important to eat. Today her main point to mom was that her only job during recovery she has is to eat. That is simply the only way to heal, nourishing your body and giving it the things it needs, even when you don’t feel up to it.

Fourth and final person for our transplant team, the social worker. Each and every candidate for transplantation is assigned a social worker. We have currently had a few. Our normal gal is out on maternity leave and will be back soon, and our maternity fill-in is on a much deserved trip this week. We had a social work dupe dupe today. Very much the bootleg version of our two normal girls, I’ll leave it at that.

Before leaving the 98th st office, we dropped down a few floors to get a new sensor for mom to pop on. She’s participating in a study that she has to wear a glucose monitor for a month at discharge, 6 months out, and 1 year out of transplant surgery. Sometimes blood sugar gets wacky after transplants and they are conducting research to determine if it’s linked to later complications with the received liver transplants. Mom has been one of those wacky blood sugar folks. Up, down, all over the place. She wholeheartedly agreed to participate knowing how many people we love that are affected Diabetes everyday. Any opportunity to help someone else, mom to a T.

Lastly, we popped across Madison ave to visit our transplant psych team. This is a huge part of getting a transplant. How it affects you socially, psychosocially, mentally. Your brain is rewired to think a million different things at once and sometimes it’s in the matter of a few hours. So important to always take care of yourself both physically and mentally. You only have one you.

Luckily the psych office is right next to the parking garage so we jumped in there and sat in two hours of traffic home (why on earth, I do not know) and got to sit down for the first time. This weather was stunning today and we decided to grill for dinner but we brought a special guest to be reunited with his Meemaw.

This wide-load could not care less about any human on earth, only cared that the grill was firing up and ready to catch any possible thing he could coming his way.

To his surprise he got to taste my failed attempt at brussel sprouts because I incinerated the life out of them by forgetting them in the oven. He did not enjoy them.

Neither did we.

xoxo

nell