Realizing Just How Much Better I feel...

I always thought I felt fine before.  I never felt sick.  I never let things stop me.  I always just existed how I felt I was to exist.  I held onto a job and worked myself silly.  I stayed out until ungodly hours of the night. I honestly thought I felt what was normal.

Oh boy was I wrong.  Even now, just 5 months out, I feel amazing.  I have so much more energy.  I'm perky.  I wanna go and live life.  But, above all, I truly feel healthy.  I feel strong.  My spirits are up, and I'm realizing that once again, I have a future.  One that I can plan for instead of living day to day, in the here and now.  And, I have to admit, it's really quite nice.

Four Months and the Little Things

Its about four months after my surgery, and I'm really ready to start talking about it.  Not that it was a bad experience or anything, it just seemed that was all I was talking about and I needed a break.  In the past 4 months, I've been through quite a bit.  I went through some rejection at first, meaning my bilirubin got really high, making me jaundice to the point of looking green.  It also caused me to be in and out of the hospital a lot the first month after my surgery, with the surgeons trying to figure out what was going on.  I had to have a biopsy on my liver, done through my jugular vein, and two other biopsy's done through my side, just to check up on the status of my new liver's rejection.  I had some constriction on the bile duct connection with my new liver.  The GI docs ended up putting a stint in to open up the passageway.  This still didn't put my bilirubin in a decreasing effect, so the surgeons decided to restart my liver.  So, they pumped me full of steroids and upped all my dosages of my anti-rejection medications.

Finally, everything started to head in the right direction, after about two months.  My yellow skin tone started fading, and I started looking like a normal person.  I started putting on a little weight again, and feeling a little bit stronger.  And, since then, things have continually gotten better.  Sure some of my numbers are a little hay-wire.  But, like I've always said, if there are gonna be any off the wall side-effects, I'll be the one to get them.  So, in turn, I've learned to just take all the little quirky things with stride and not let them get me down.  Just have had to learn how to get around them.  Like the shakey hands, the headaches, and my hair starting to fall out.  Sure, they're not what I want, but if my liver is running okay, then I'm okay with those little things.  They kind of make me who I am now.