Clinic Day

28Aug

Tuesday our Physio was cut short due to a Clinic appointment. Carman managed to do all but his 10 reps on the pulley (for tricep work) and his 20 min treadmill walk. I thought this was great and we could make up for not doing tread later in the day.

At our last Clinic appointment we were in chairs for the better part of 2 hours (sometimes the Docs are just otherwise occupied - lung exchanges and so on) but this time we barely touched our bums to the seats when Carman’s name was called!

This appointment was spent with one of the MOTP Nurse Practitioners who was wonderful . She was thorough in her questions (and reminded Carman that they’ll be asking him the same things every appointment to gage how his health is maintaining or declining). She then reviewed the post-op immunosuppressive drug regime for us. this will include calcineurin inhibitors; cell cycle inhibitors and steroids. We won’t know the exact combination of meds in each category until after transplant, but we can do some research on the general categories and familiarize ourselves with them...wait, who are we kidding? I’ll be the researcher!

Our NP was the first to offer Carman a “listen” since we’ve been in the MOT Program. Dj brought her stethoscope home when he was first diagnosed and we all had a listen but the diseases has advanced considerably since then, so the velcro crackle is much more pronounced. NP explained that he should pay attention to the sound between an inhalation and exhalation, but should not hold his breath. She handed him the ear pieces and placed the chest piece and told him to breathe normally. He nodded that he could hear the crackle. She then placed the chest piece on her right ribs and said, “Now listen to mine.” He listened for a moment, then nodded vigorously. No crackle in her healthy lungs. He removed the earpieces, she took the stethoscope and then...he pointed at her chest and smiled, “I want those!”.  I just rolled my eyes...anyone else would have gotten slapped, but she just laughed and said “I’m afraid I’m using them for now!”

To celebrate a good work out and good appointment we dragged J&B down to the entrance at Sick Kids Hospital and enjoyed a romantic lunch of gourmet street meat...delicious, loaded-with-fixin’s grilled hot dogs ccompanied by a cafe-mocha-frappa-crappa, of course! 

The sign said NO Smoking, so we made the best of it!

I had my last Yoga class for the summer tonight but will start again later in September for the fall. Sylvia does a wonderful class for us and I’ll miss it over the next few weeks!