2017 wrap-up... becoming an aunt, a dry-run/fake transplant, and finally a transplant

Today is exactly a month since I was discharged from hospital, and just over 8 weeks since transplant. My lungs are doing great so far, and I believe that they will continue doing so. There are still some annoyances regarding medication levels and kidneys to sort out. Hemoglobin (basically iron levels) is FINALLY normal again. Yay for small victories. Definitely feeling a bit of anxiety as it's been 2 weeks since lung function and still a while to go before that next check-up. Hopefully this kind of anxiety will go away. It will also help when my friends are back from holiday and I am busier again to prevent me from thinking too much! And when the Jan biopsy is behind me. There will probably be a hysterectomy early in the year as well, as my gynae has wanted to do this before but my lungs were too weak for the surgery and it would have been too risky. Ugh. Just have to get it over with.

My transplant that went so well was a miracle for many reasons, but especially because I started losing hope of a donor towards the end. I got a call for lungs in the middle of the year as well... I haven't blogged about this before for various reasons. I was called at 23:30... and told to be at hosp by 2am. We called everyone and met my parents at the hospital, very much like when the transplant finally happened. I was taken to theatre at about 10:00 or so, super excited. About an hour or so later (I can't remember what time it was at all) I was woken up again. The lungs weren't good. They took out the central line and arterial line and sent me back to the ward. I was devastated. Obviously I didn't want lungs that my Drs weren't happy with, but I felt heart-broken that they weren't good enough. I was especially bummed about it in Aug when I was super sick and in hospital plus picked up a new bug... I kept thinking that I wouldn't be in that situation if that transplant had worked out. It did however make me feel like lungs would come "soon" though... although in the end months passed and this wasn't the case. So as the year started coming to an end, I was convinced that 2017 would not be my year.

I didn't blog much this year compared to previous years. In fact I basically did half as many posts as previous quiet years, mainly due to lack of things to blog about because my life was pretty boring. A post that was significant though is this one that I wrote about 6 weeks before the lungs came. That post basically sums up my year. I know my health could still have gone a lot worse before transplant, but I'm so glad it didn't. One of the reasons I had such a great recovery is because I wasn't too weak. Even though I was suffering. But the suffering could have been way worse...

Back to 27 Dec 2017 though... Something exciting that I did last week was to JOIN THE GYM AGAIN!!! I probably won't be able to go in Jan, when all the "new-years resolution" people are there, but at least I've been able to play some squash before the year was done! Chris and I went to play on Friday and it was great! My squash-stamina is obviously crap, but once I got into it, the technique started coming naturally again! I just took a look at all posts with the label "resolutions" and found this one regarding exercise that I wrote in July this year. How lucky am I to be able to get another chance and make this a reality? I will always look back at that post when I'm feeling lazy for exercise.

Christmas was nice, my gran is here. Chrislie and Pierre was down in PE, but they're back now. SO nice to see Adriaan again. That little boy and my new lungs were the highlights of 2017 by far. On Christmas Eve my thoughts were occupied with sadness and sympathy for my donor's family and Siobhan's family. My heart is breaking for both of those families at the moment.

Not much planned for the rest of 2017... exercising, spending time with family and chilling at home. Will be glad when 2018 starts and everyone is back. Thank you to EVERYONE who supported me this year... Chris, who has been a rock. My parents and sister who has been there for me my whole life and who WILL always be there for me no matter what. The friends who made the bad times better (and I am lucky to have quite a few of those!!). The LLGL girls, who truly understand what it's like waiting for a transplant and share my passion for organ donation awareness and get just as angry as I do when there is bad publicity or untrue facts get published. My awesome friends in the medical field, you know who you are - for making hospital times easier and believing in me. My lung Dr, Paul Williams.... who has endured 11 years of me giving him a hard time (sometimes) and somehow hasn't fired me as a patient yet, instead he has been there for replacing my lungs twice and have my best interests at heart. And obviously the rest of the army of Drs and other medical staff I've dealt with during the year. I wouldn't have been here without everyone's input. Hope I didn't forget anyone... if I did... I blame the meds.