So Rob had his clinic appointment this morning and we have very good news to share:
Rob's creatinine level has dropped to 1.7! Hooray!
But his Prograf level is still a little on the high side, so they've lowered his dose a little more. So perhaps his creatinine will continue to go down once they get his Prograf exactly where they want it.
His next visit will be in 2 weeks, but it won't be the regular "big" clinic visit where he talks with all the doctors. This one will just be a Lab draw for the CellCept study he is enrolled in. I haven't said much about this yet, but what a blessing this study has been! It's given us free CellCept for 1 year, and extra lab draws throughout the year that our insurance doesn't have to pay for! I don't know how much the CellCept would cost us in co-pays, but I'm guessing it would be the same as the Prograf, which is $40/month. I don't know about you, but if someone is going to give you free medicine for a year that would normally cost you almost $500, I'd guess that you'd feel blessed, too!
Rob's feeling pretty good and his energy levels seem to be getting higher every day. Praise God, as He is so good and we are so undeserving, but through His grace, He has given us new life with this kidney transplant!
The yucky thing that Rob's been dealing with as a transplant side effect is Thrush. Basically, it's an overgrowth of yeast in the mouth. I know it's kind of yucky to say, but Rob's tongue is coated with a gross white film and he gets really bad breath. Thankfully, there is a medicine that is helping get rid of this. He's been taking it for 2 weeks now and it hasn't totally gotten rid of it, but I think with more time, it will. I'll spare you the totally gross picture of what thrush looks like, but if you're feeling especially gutsy, you can click on the wikipedia article about it and see the picture for yourself! Don't say I didn't warn you that it's gross!
Well that's all for now. I will try to not wait so long in between blog updates about Rob's new kidney.
I wonder if he can also try gentian violet for the thrush? Or the other med that I hear works well is Diflucan. I battled it while nursing. Yuck.
ReplyDeleteGreat about the clinical trial, I work in clinical trials and you never really how about the patients first hand.