More Testing...

Amber and I continue to make our trips out to USC University Hospital for more testing. Yesterday she had another scan of her lungs and today she had an ABG (a blood gas test where they draw blood from your artery in your wrist) and a Full PFT (Pulmonary Function Test).

She is in right now doing the PFT and I can hear the technician saying, "Ready, BLOW, GO GO GO GO GO GO GO GO, okay breathe in."

Thank you Amber for all of the hard work that you are doing to see if you are a match, and thanks for being willing to be poked and prodded too. I love you!

(Just made a spelling change for my mommy, breathe is spelled b-r-e-a-t-h-e not b-r-e-a-t-h, love you mom!)

A Sister's Love

Amber (my sister) is being tested to see if she will be able to donate a lobe to me. So far she has completed the following tests:

a pft (pulmonary function test)
a blood draw
an x-ray
a ct scan with contrast
she has met with a social worker

and at the moment she is doing an EKG and Cardiogram I believe, I could be wrong about the Cardiogram part.

I want to thank Amber for being willing to go through these tests to see if she could donate one of her lobes to me, it's not a small procedure.

Thanks Amber for all that you are doing! I love you Sis!

Sister Fights to Save a Life

The possible donor had testing last Friday (a pft, an x-ray, and a blood draw). They scored high enough on the pft to donate, but the doctors want to test my sister, Amber, to see if she can score higher. Today she had a pft. The doctors will look at her scores and go from there. So, she got her chance to see if she can be a possible donor : )

I should also be leaving the hospital today. I'm not sure if I wrote about it, but I came in two weeks ago because I was working to hard to breathe. Now I am off of oxygen and feeling alot better.

All in God's Timing

So one of the possible donors didn't work out. The transplant team is now testing another possible donor to see if they are a good fit. The earliest a transplant would likely happen would be in four weeks, two weeks for testing and then two weeks later the transplant would happen. Will see what happens. This just means that I have more time to build up my muscles for the transplant.

My sister is so sweet; she is getting a little upset that she hasn't been tested yet, while others aren't working out. It makes me feel loved, since I don't get very many hugs from her. Love you Amber!

50/50

It seems like I spend 50% of my time in Chino and 50% of it at the hospital in Los Angeles. I left the hospital 3 weeks ago and was on home IVs 2 weeks ago, now I'm back.

I am being admitted to the hospital again today, the doctors think I am working too hard to breath. I am back on oxygen and short of breath every once in awhile. I was hoping that the next time I came to the hospital it would be for a transplant. I guess that's not happening.

The doctors are saying that it's good I am coming in before transplant so then they can get me as healthy as possible before the surgery and make sure I don't get too sick to have a transplant. I understand that but it still doesn't make me any happier about being admitted.

While I'm here they will hopfully fix my esophogus. They saw erosion when they did an EGD last week. In order to fix it, to make sure nothing comes up and into the new good lungs, the doctors have to close off my esophogus a little bit. I'm not sure how this is done, but hopfully I will get some answers soon.