Immuno Suppressants and Medications

When I was discharged from the hospital, I went home with bunch of medications where three of them are immuno suppressant to keep my body from rejecting the new kidney transplanted in me. Not only the medicines are to many, but very expensive, too! Thank goodness, I was covered with Medicare on top of our health insurance...we only spent $250 bucks for everything. I'll say, that we are blessed to be living in this country where advanced technology is available for those people who have life threatening disease like me. Who would have thought that I would get new kidney for such a short wait. I am still taking medications...and will be taking for the rest of my life or at least the life of the kidney.

Hello New Kidney, Goodbye Dialysis!

Eight months later, I was blessed to get new kidney from a baby (Thanks to You, My Donor). It was in March of 2006 (3am) when I got a call from Medical City saying that they've found a donor that would possibly be a perfect match for me. I was very happy and thank my Heavenly Father for GREAT blessing and an advanced birthday present for me since my birthday was ten days away. Hubby and I got up early, went to the hospital and waited for the result whether the kidney was a match or not. There were three of us there waiting which one of us will be getting the kidney. Fortunately, I was the one who perfectly match the donors kidney! We were elated...so after eight hours of waiting, finally was admitted and wheeled me to my room where I waited for the surgery to be done. The surgery lasted for hours and thank goodness, the kidney started working already! I stayed at the hospital for more than a week, then went home.

Pregnancy and Kidney Failure...

Seven years ago, when I got pregnant with our first baby, my OB-Gyne found out that I was spilling fair amount of protein in my urine and that was very alarming since it could be a sign of kidney failure. And so, she sent me to a specialist to watch me and the baby. Unfortunately, we lost our baby and that broke our hearts. Then, we got pregnant again the next year and luckily, we were blessed with a son who was born premature. He stayed at NICU for a month. Six months later, I started having terrible headache. That was when we decided to see our PCP. We've found out that my blood pressure was pretty high and I was retaining liquid in my body on top of spilling more protein. My Nephrologist decided to do a biopsy for once and sure enough, I had a FSGS, a rare kidney disease of which they don't have any idea what the causes was. My kidney started to fail rapidly that I had to go to dialysis. I was on dialysis for eight months. It was a sacrificed on my husband's part and a nightmare for me every time I go to dialysis 3 times a week. And I don't want to go back there again ever!

My Sixth Blog

This is my sixth blog that will talk about my health in particular. I decided to record everything that is going with my ongoing saga as a kidney transplant recipient, and how I handle my responsibilities as a full time wife and mother while caring for my health in general.