3 Weeks Back to Work
Hello everyone! It's been awhile since I last posted here. To be completely honest, my life has been slowly returning to normal, and I’ve been feeling more and more normal every day. The more normal I feel, the less I think about my surgery, and the more I forget about the blog. Honestly, in the world of my recovery, there isn’t much to report. Most of the time I feel about 95%, but I still can’t use my abs too much or run. Otherwise, I feel great. My jeans are even comfortable to wear again!
Being back to work is nice. Things aren’t too different in terms of my daily routine since I work from home, but it’s nice to have stuff to do for most of the day. I’m glad I took the amount of leave I did (about 7 and a half weeks), because if I had returned to work earlier, it might not have been comfortable to sit in my office chair all day. The only thing is if I lean forward in my chair too much, such as I do when I’m really engaged in what I’m doing, my core muscles can get a little uncomfortable. Overall, though, while being back to work is nice, sometimes I do miss my leave.
A couple of weeks ago, Jill and I helped a friend move. Jill and our friend did all the heavy lifting, while I only did lighter tasks (such as disassembling a bed frame or carrying a lamp) because of my weight lift limit. I was still moving around a lot that day, though, and about a day later, I started to feel a little sore around where my appendix is. The soreness wasn’t constant and would only appear if I was sitting in a weird position or there was pressure in that spot. I reached out to my donor coordinator and she told me to keep an eye on it. Thankfully, it went away after only a few days and I feel fine now. Other than that, there has been nothing out of the ordinary.
What hasn’t been normal, however, is the COVID-19 outbreak. My day-to-day life hasn’t really changed (since I work from home anyway), but Jill has been working remotely here in our apartment for over two weeks now. Our parents are also under lockdowns in their respective home states. Jill and I only really go out to walk for 30 minutes a day. We have been taking as many precautions as possible, though as a donor, I’m not much more susceptible to the virus than the average person is. However, my recipient Anae is more at risk. After transplant, recipients are on immunosuppressant drugs for the rest of their lives to combat rejection. Because of that, they are more susceptible to diseases because their immune systems are weakened. I feel sorry for transplant recipients who have to be extra careful during this time, and especially for Anae, as she still has to go into the hospital once a week for check-ups. I have a follow-up CT scan and post-surgery check-up scheduled for April 17, but my donor coordinator said that due to the ongoing situation, they’re doing appointments virtually and canceling all non-essential testing. It’s still up in the air whether or not I’ll be able to have my CT scan in April as planned, but I’ll find out the closer we get to the appointment date. With all of this going on, I’m just glad the surgery happened when it did back in January, because I’ve heard of transplants being postponed due to the virus. My kidney removal and Anae’s kidney transplant most likely wouldn’t have been able to happen for months.
In lighter news, before things got bad with COVID-19, I replied to the letter that Anae sent me. I filled out the worksheet questionnaire she gave me, and wrote a little letter telling her more about myself. Jill drew a picture of Anae’s two favorite Pokemon, and I included a photograph of our cat, Hank. She received my letter and her mom told me Anae’s been showing the photograph of Hank to everyone, which is really cute. Jill and I wanted to send her a package, but given current events we’re going to hold off for now for safety’s sake.
That’s about all that’s happening here. Things are mostly returning to normal (minus the outbreak). I’ll report back here if anything changes, or when I hear more about my upcoming appointment.