Better?
March 21, 2025
I’ve been home from the hospital for about a week now, and I’m finally starting to feel a little better. I was there for about a week, and I think I had four rounds of thymoglobulin to treat the kidney rejection. Each round was either six hours or eight hours, depending on how sick it made me feel. But then it really just made me feel sick all the time, and still kind of does. It completely depleted my immune system so that my body wouldn’t keep fighting the kidney. Since I got home I felt zapped of energy and my arms hurt. I don’t sleep more than a few hours at a time. I’m tired a lot and get a little delirious sometimes. I’ve ventured out twice, to the grocery store both times, and that felt like a big deal. I did start driving myself to my hospital appointments—I hated taking Ubers, and it seems silly to have someone here take me two hours out of their way so I can get a blood test.
But I’m starting to feel a bit better. I was back at the hospital yesterday for labs and to see my doctors. My numbers looked much better. My kidney numbers had all recovered, and the other stuff is falling back into place. Though my doctor said that I need to be really careful about not getting sick, so I canceled a dinner I was hoping to have at the end of the month. I think it’s a fair decision. My friends and sisters have kids, and things go around this time of year. It’s no one’s fault, but maybe it would be more fun when I don’t have to worry about it so much.
I find myself struggling with the impulse to do things—around the house, in the garden, in the garage. But I’m not supposed to do much of anything because of dust, and fungus in the dirt, and just stuff I can’t think about too much. I know I’m not supposed to do things, but I want to. I try to do things every once in a while, especially the last couple days, but I peter out a few minutes into trying.
My arms hurt, but not as much. They’re still bruised from the IV injections and the thymo. I have a bruise on my right wrist that started as a small dot where the IV went in, but is now bigger and looks like a bunch of broken capillaries. The big veins in my arm are all hard and bumpy with clots.
I’m seeing my primary care physician tomorrow, and will see if she has any recommendations. My kidney doctors have said to take Tylenol and use warm and cold compresses.
I was finally able to schedule my first colonoscopy for June, and while my liver doctor recommended I get a Hepatitis B vaccine, my kidney doctors said should wait a few months because my immune system wouldn’t able to process it and it wouldn’t do anything.