Check-In: Two Years In…My Transplantiversary!

Two years ago on December 26, 2017, I received the greatest gift from my wonderful donor.

It’s been 2 years — my transplantiversary– it’s hard to believe because time flies so quickly now.

Things are settling out a bit.

• My kidney seems to be trucking along fine. I work hard to stay hydrated — I have become a big fan of HINT water.

• My calcium levels had been borderline high. One of the side effects of kidney disease is that it throws your parathyroid out of wack. There are medications you can take for that. When you have a transplant, the parathyroid may come back or not. My levels have remained borderline so I started taking a small dose of that medication. So far so good.

• My hemoglobin A1C has been borderline as well. I lost 15 pounds during the summer to try to manage that. We will see how that goes. The antirejection meds while amazing are often unkind to the pancreas. I will be working on that.

Family Update

• Thomas and I went to Grand Cayman this summer. It is such a beautiful island. It is so wonderful to be able to travel without lugging my dialysis machine around with me.

• This summer after the picture above, I lost a lot of my extra weight on the Optavia program which I am going to put Kendall on a modified version of during the holidays (after Christmas dinner!). I am going to do it with her — it’s a gentle keto-like program where you eat multiple small meals/snacks a day and one or two healthy portion-controlled meals. She has gained weight so far this school year, and with her leg problems, we have to nip that in the bud early.

• She’s also going to high school next year. I can’t believe it!

• Joshua has finished his applications for college — just waiting for responses. We are working on scholarships now. I can’t believe he’s leaving already!

• Thomas and I are planning for a family graduation trip next summer. More details later.

• My father has had a rough go of it over the last few months. But over the past week, his doctors have managed to make him feel better but now we have more tests to see why he is not feeling well.

Transplantiversary Celebration

Unlike last year, I am going to actually celebrate my 2-year transplantiversary. I had a cake made! I have one question: Why is the kidney so small? Ha Ha!

We are going to a friend’s house for brunch on the 26th (without J — he’s playing basketball in another city). He reminded me of the fact that he won’t be around for several days after Christmas so some of my leftover Christmas meal may go to waste!

On to year 3! It’s going to be an exciting year! I have plans! LOL

Other Happenings

• I still have my blog, Life: The Reboot. It’s more of a self-help space now.
• I started another blog, The Rebooted Realigned Mom MD. It’s more of a lifestyle space for me.
• I have published some planners for 2020 on Amazon KDP. If you are looking for one, check out my page.

• I have been working on my novel — I was getting it edited but hit some snags. I will get that finished within the first six months of 2020.

Thank you for continuing to share my posts and my Facebook page to help spread the word about other people who are looking for their angels. Let’s keep spreading stories for others who are in the same spot I was.

I am going to have a happy transplantiversary! Thank you for reading and have a beautiful day!

Be Inspired–Give Life!

Dominique