New pill progress and RIP Emma kitty

Firstly, Friday was 9 years 8 months with the borrowed breathers. Go lungs go! Every month I wonder if this is the last month that I'm celebrating the lungaversary with these lungs. However they continue to carry me and I'm so grateful for that. 

Since starting the new blood pressure medication my heart rate has dropped tremendously. My Fitbit's strap broke, so I haven't worn it since Sunday or so, but in the first week of being on Concor my heart rate has dropped 20 beats per minute! And it has dropped even more since then. So that has made me feel a lot better. I'm still very out of breath when moving around but at least my heart feels less like it's busy exploding. And that's always a good thing. It's kind of scary what a tiny little pill can do... I have slightly more energy too I think, although I hope I didn't just jinx it by saying that. My last sputum sample that I did 2 weeks ago showed Pseudomonas again, but since my infection count was really low we're just carrying on with the antibiotic nebs.

My parents have had to put my old cat Emma down just after my last blog post... :-( I got Emma in April 1999. She was a very difficult cat, who bullied all the cats who came after her... so much so that for a period of 9 months we had to let her stay with the breeder again until the new kitten we got grew up. She loved my sis much more than she loved me, although if there was no one else for her to sit on she would sit with me. The below pic was taken in December last year. Ten years ago when I was waiting for my transplant I never thought that I would out-live Emma. She had become blind and her kidneys were failing unfortunately. She has also (ironically) never been the same after the other cat Lily (who she almost killed) died about 2 years ago. RIP Emma kitty.

Not much else has been happening. Time seems like a bit of a blur. I'm a little bit in shock by the fact that it's almost October. Adriaan has been adorable as per usual. The kitties keep us amused.

Oh almost forgot, I went to see Jessica at her photopheresis session yesterday in Pretoria. Also wanted to say hi to the "vein whisperer" Cecelia who made my 24 treatments so much more bearable. I'm their longest surviving photopheresis patient so far it seems (I think I was the second lung transplant patient who had this... not sure... but def one of the first here in SA.)! Very strange to think that! The treatment never improved my lung function or kept it stable immediately, but it did slow down the decline of my lung function significantly. So it was successful! Can't believe it's been more than 4 years since I started the treatment back in 2013. It's been a crazy few years...