Learning The Ropes, July 2011

""And what is as important as knowledge?" asked the mind. "Caring and seeing with the heart," answered the soul."

Author: Flavia

 

Well Canada day has arrived and left without any fanfare from us.  I had so wanted to go downtown for the Gay Pride Parade and the fireworks, but yet again I'm too ill. Weeks later when fellow transplant friends were still talking about it I was very disappointed.

Being sick is never fun but to have to do it in another place other than home is 10 times worse and add the sweltering temperatures of up to 50 degrees Celsius to that sends my loving husband and son off to the store to buy some air-conditioners. THAT'S what it does haha.

   
 This is my month to meet doctors, I guess.  Starting out with Dr. Rotstein, UHN lung transplant doctor for infectious diseases. I get the pleasure of this meeting because my recent trip to the emerg saw my tests results showing my liver counts to be sky-rocketing, I was told to stop taking the TB meds.  He informs me that my liver counts are coming down nicely.  He also informs me that the cause of my sickness is C-diffcile .  Great lovely all together, he gives me a prescription and asks where I might have come into contact. All I could see was the 101 gas station restrooms I used on the trip up because I had "pissitis" nerves, whatever.  I just know every time the van stopped I needed to pee. 

 Next I met with Dr. Barth (Hemoglobinist) at the Princess Margaret Hospital to discuss the high antibodies in my blood. Under normal circumstances these are a good thing to have but during a transplant when they will be putting a foreign object such as new lungs into my body my antibodies are going to fight to reject it for all their worth.  Thus, making me much more prone to rejection. He explained that during my surgery they will have to do a plasma thesis to flush my blood and will probably have to be done at least three times in the days following surgery.

 Next  I went to the Toronto Western Hospital to meet with my new family doctor, nice man just very old school. He will start me on my Hepatitis shots that we all need to have done before surgery.

By mid-month I was able to return to physio again.  Really starting to feel good again and patiently waiting for our girls to arrive for their summer vacation with us.

Pictures from this blog came from a day we went for a drive to find the Scarborough Bluffs, we didn't succeed finding them but we found this cute little park instead.

                      Until again... Co 

ORGAN AWARENESS WEEK

Hi friends, Coleen here on the beginning of Organ Awareness Week in Canada. My husband and I moved here to Toronto from PEI 11 months ago to await transplant. There are currently about 70 people on the lung list at all times. There is no numbers on the list, it goes by matches on blood type, lung size, how sick a patient is.... Please think of us this week and seek out and sign a donor card and also let your family know your wishes. Thank -you!

It is true that heaven only needs you soul. Imagine, standing at the pearly gates with St. Peter and looking back on your life...the clouds part and down below is the scenes of many surgery's taking place where your body parts that you know longer need is saving 8 people's lives. What a beautiful legacy to leave behind!  God Bless!

Moving In, June 2011

"Learn from yesterday, live for today, hope for tomorrow."

Author: annon

(Count up six floors to see our balcony)

 The Beverly Hillbilly's have arrived in Toronto. Complete with Granny on the roof (me) instead of her rocking chair I am sitting in my walker haha.  It sure feels this way!  Here we are in our bright, spacious, apartment which we love.  Van is unpacked, apartment is full of totes (filled with pots and pans, dishes, linens, clothes, ect.) One thing we seem to be missing is furniture.  We have two t.v's, three computers, two blow up beds, and my scrap-booking table. That's it, until a friend arrives in the next 8-10 days with our furniture.

our first pic in apartment

First thing we did was to blow up the beds, cause when I get tired I don't want to be getting our bed ready.  People work late here in Toronto. Medigas,  my new liquid oxygen company arrived at 9:30 pm our first night to set up my new system.

Thanks to Ashtin's ingenuity he managed to hook up one of our T.V.'s through his computer and we could watch shows from his hard drive. Rogers cable company will be here tomorrow to hook up the internet, cable and phone.  after sitting on our totes, watching some old The Simpsons' episodes,  we hit the sack.

Poor Ashtin found his face planted into the hardwood floor this morning.  Not sure what happened to his blow-up bed, but it wasn't pleasant for him.  After breakfast we found out from our superintendents (from NFLD) that the nearest Walmart is just about five miles east of us. Off we trekked.  Picked up some fans, tv. stand, computer stand. This Walmart is a super sized one with a full grocery store which was great. However, we looked around us and there is almost every store we could image, this area is called the Golden Mile. Again, pat my back on on-line apartment searching. 

Our T.V. center

Our MEDIA CENTER we figured that the lawn chair can be used on our balcony when we get the furniture.

Toronto General Hospital

June 13th, my big day.  Headed down to hospital and met with my coordinator again then my meeting with surgeon Dr. Andrew Pierre and signed the papers which officially put me on the lung transplant list. Hee Haw!

Friday, bright and early I started physio. They didn't tax me to much the first day, just went over my exercises from the warm ups, speed on treadmill, tension on the bike, which weights I would be using for my bicepts, tricepts, squats, leg weights, stairs.  God I hope I can do this.
I will be attending physio three mornings a week for about 11/2 hours a day.  Every 3 months I will have PFT tests, chest cat scans, blood work and a clinic appointment with a nurse practitioner or a respirologist. I will attending a group meeting every Wednesday morning at 11:00-12:00. Plus I will have to get a family doctor at the Toronto Western Hospital.  From the family doctor I will get three Hepatitis shots.

Since we arrived in Toronto every second day or so I felt ill. As June went on I felt sicker more often.

 We had a meeting set up with Wheel Trans, this is a company through the TTC where they will taxi the disable people to meetings and appointments for just 3 dollars a trip. This turned out to be a God send for us. Considering we couldn't park downtown for under 28 dollars a day.  Taxi's were costing us between 28- 35 dollars a day depending on traffic.

We also had a meeting with respirologist , Dr.Hutcheon, the same doctor who gave me my teleconference. This time we discussed morbid things such as power of attorney. Who gets my permission to pull my plug. Next we discussed whether I wanted to be placed on a respirator ect. and other such awful stuff. However, it must be done.

Soon the sickness got to be every day and I have had enough of it.  I finally went to Emerg. to have it checked out. They did blood test and an x-ray of my chest only to find out my liver counts were very high, and said that I needed to come off the T.B. medication I was put on. Emerg had a discussion over the phone with the Clinic doctor and I was told to come back up to the 12 th floor for a clinic. Here, I waited for 2 and 1/2 hours to see a clinic doctor. The test results from Emerg had come in and it looks like I have C -difficell. Plus I needed to come off the T. B. medication and they would set me up an appointment with the teams infectious disease doctor. End of June 2011.  

Almost There

All you need is trust and a little bit of pixie dust ~ Peter Pan

We were up and left Pocaterie around 6 am, good riddance dirty motel.  Looks like it's going to be a beautiful day.

Driving down the highway we soon came upon one of our favorite places. LOL. and the jokes start. Ashtin bellows from the back seat, " hey mom, it's where they keep all your short buses." He thinks he is such a comedian but I will get even someday soon.  For those of you who don't know where we are at this moment it's Drummondville, Qubec.

Soon we reached the La Fontain Tunnel.  Down we go, bubble, bubble, bubble, whoosh, glub, glub, glub....

"That's it Alan, take the fast land, like we know where we're going" enter sarcasm.




Glub, Glub, Glub, whoosh, bubble, bubble, bubble.

Hello Montreal!!!!

We had no accidents, no traffic jams, we had a nice smooth drive through Montreal. We only had one idiot toot his horn at us, too bad we say, he needs to learn how to merge. Sending our thank-yous to Betty Boob (Alan's GPS  system)  we never veered of track.



And ... we hit the 401 running, thinking we could make good time on this stretch of road.  It wasn't meant to be, one road construction after another all the way along.  Leaving us coming up to Toronto close to 5 pm, shit.... Every road in every direction was full. The Express Way's four lanes heading west, the Collectors four lanes heading west.  Not to mention the eight lands of Express way and Collectors heading East. OH and I forgot to mention the off ramps.  Man it's crazy.

 Coming along almost to our exit to the Don Valley Pkwy,  my darling husband and driver in his infinite wisdom states, " Why in God's Name ( not really his words haha) would anyone want to live like this." The thought of people facing this traffic everyday just to go to work or shopping ect. was just beyond his PEI frame of mind. We took our exit onto the D.V.P. and all I can think about is we are all most there. Alan however, hated driving on the DVP worst than the 401. He says that is always some idiot trying to get ahead by jumping lanes.  Exited onto Wynford Drive.

Turning into Wynford Heights Crescent.

Look at this we have a mini mall in the center to the crescent.  Alan is sooo impressed he has his own Tim Horton's. This has made his day. lol
Can I pick apartments online or what haha.

This is our building, our new home for God knows how long!