The Transplant Gorilla, Part One

I am still a vivarium of the absurd, even after all this time. I still have aspergillosis, although Vfend seems to be keeping it relatively tame with a whip and a chair. I have had MRSA
a bunch of times, VRE (I got that in the hospital in California) and have had most other common nosocomial (hospital acquired) infections.  Every few months, my one and a half lungs become mysteriously inflamed and I lose my mind from the lack of oxygen. Then, it's an ER visit and me in the middle of a room full of germ shedders, struggling to breathe until they can pump me full of steroids and/or intubate me. As a result, there's two weeks in the joint for me so they can all put their heads together and figure out what happened. I usually know what I am in for when I show up at the hospital and can predict how relatively uncomfortable (hello, nurse) I will be during whatever pageant they have in store for me. So there's that.

The last time I talked about a kidney transplant with Dr. Benstein, she told me that it would be a very long time before I would be healthy enough to have one. Dr. Sloane told me that I would probably need to take Vfend for the rest of my life. I have taken this medication for more than two years and there are still spots of aspergillis in my lung, so it does not look like it's going anywhere soon. I have no idea if they would actually consider transplanting me if I still have the dregs of aspergillis. I also don't feel right about putting an otherwise healthy person's healthy kidney in my body, only to have it fail for various disease and/or medication-related reasons. This decision, when I have to make it, will be a very difficult one.

When Ger gave me Lefty, she was healthy and I was, except for the ESRD, brain coils and liver transplant, fairly healthy too. My doctors were enthusiastic and everyone expected me to live happily ever after, including Ger and me. At the time when I was hosting a huge colony of aspergillis and other bad actors, my doctors had to make a decision that caused my kidney to begin to fail. It would have made no sense to have a dead girl with a live living-donor kidney, so they limited the immunosuppressants to give me a fighting chance to lick the apergillosis. I totally supported this; if my kidney failed, I could live on dialysis but would not be able to survive the march of this fungal disease through my body. Aspergillosis regularly kills transplant patients. I am, once again, an End Stage Renal Disease patient surviving on hemodialysis.

There is a fellow patient at my clinic who is an inspiration to me. I will call her "Ms. L". She is a beautiful 84-year-old firecracker who bought herself a red 2011 Mustang convertible last month. She gets to the clinic earlier than I do and is usually sleeping in the Big Pink Chair when I arrive. At some point, she awakens, fresh as a daisy and watches TV or chats with fellow patients until her time is up. She does not fidget or complain that I know of. She sits there in the chair of torture like some kind of African queen mum and gets her treatment. Then, she buzzes home in the Mustang. Much respect.

I am like a mongoose strapped to a baby car seat. I have arthritis of the spine and sitting anywhere for three and a half hours is a handy opportunity to pray for death. Dr. Klein has recently started me on a medication that takes the edge off my pain and it enables me to sit in relative comfort for a while and that is encouraging to me. But, I am no Ms. L. I hope to someday be as dignified as she is and as regal, too. She's my dialysis idol.