I just got home from the hospital and wanted to let you know that the First Mate continues to improve. I spent the entire day at the hospital today; I had originally planned on stopping there in the morning and going to work for a few hours midday, but instead I just hung around. Her doctors discussed her progress and went over her labs with us. For those of you who know about kidney function, her creatinine level is down to 1.9, which is closer to normal than she's seen in years (normal is ~1.0). She got up and walked a few steps twice today, although it made her nauseous both times.

Right now, she's still feeling very sore and very tired. The massive steroids that she's taking for the next few days have swollen some of the soft tissue in her face, giving her a look sometimes called "moon-face", which she's been dreading. Since she'll be off the steroids rather quickly, probably within a couple of weeks, it should just be temporary. Needless to say, though, she's not terribly keen on visitors at the moment, and the swelling makes her more uncomfortable than she otherwise would be.

However, she's also very happy with the results of the surgery, and especially with the remarkably quick recovery of the donor. We're thinking she'll be out Monday, which will work out nicely as my father will be coming out Sunday to help me when she comes home, and my sister will come the week after that. With the FM, the trick isn't to keep up with her requests -- you have to watch her like a hawk to keep her from doing chores. For instance, when she came home from the hospital after her first transplant, on the third day I caught her sneaking into the garage to do laundry. She got furious when I stopped her and made her go back to bed, mostly because I was yelling and laughing at the same time. I anticipate having a couple of the same kind of conversations, although she may not pull that stunt with my family around. (Hell, even if she did, they'd blame it on me.)

So now I'm back home, missing her but happy that it'll just be a few days until she's home and healthier than she's been for at least a year.

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