Charlotte's Heart Transplant

Just a quick hello because I haven't posted in a while! I hope everyone had a wonderful Christmas, I was out with my Dad's girlfriend on 23rd and at my Dad's house for dinner Christmas eve which was wonderful. I was very tired after my night out on 23rd but that's to be expected! I did surprisingly well while I was out, I was able to dance a bit and walk to the car. It does cause me chest pain but it's not so much that I can't dance, I power through! (Beyoncé spurs me on) I got my second parking ticket coming out of the bar, for parking on double yellows (which in UK you are allowed to do with a disabled badge) but apparently I was parked in a no loading zone so there's another appeal form I need to fill in! Thankfully it's a different council to my last one so hopefully they let me off! I had a really swollen stomach on Christmas day before I'd even eaten anything, probably because I hadn't had chance to rest after my night out, although I ...

Hello again! Monday 18th I was back at Wythenshawe transplant outpatients to meet my surgeon Mr Venkat, there are 5 transplant surgeons so it may not be him that does my actual surgery but he is one of them and he met with me to explain further about the transplant surgery. I asked if I could record the meeting and he said that was fine, and it's a good job because he told us a lot of stuff that I can't remember already! So, first I had my bloods done, they redo one of the blood typing ones to double check that it's right and just some normal bloods like the heart failure measure BNP. So, Mr Venkat began by asking me about my daily life, things that I now struggle doing like making the bed, I don't go out of my house much and I get a tight chest when I'm not even exercising. Then he went through my three main tests. So, he firstly showed me my echocardiogram which shows that my atrium are huge! The ventricles are the muscular pumping chambers of the heart ...

Friday Hello all! Feeling a bit deflated today. I'm sad to say goodbye to the ward, although over the moon to be home, showered and watching Peaky Blinders with a takeout! So I won't be discussed in the MDT meeting on Friday because I have a problem in my liver, the doctors think it's just a group of benign blood vessels but they have to do an MRI to check before they can discuss my results properly. So on the plus side I can put it all to the back off my mind until after Christmas, but I hate waiting, I'd rather know! Today I was just on the ward for the day, I had to finish my 24 hour urine collection (sorry TMI) before I could go home so I just spent the day packing up my things and chatting with the nurses and the ladies on my ward. Then I had a really long chat with one of the transplant coordinators who was lovely and had so much information. I have a few consent forms to read and sign about sharing my information, a certain type of organ harvesting and...

Thursday Hello all! (WARNING - today's blog post describes surgery) Today was significantly less fun than yesterday that's for sure! Firstly, I was rudely awoken at 6 am. The nurse stabbed me with a cannula. But I had an alright sleep last night, I was quite cold because I'm not used to being in a single bed so the covers weren't big enough, but I didn't have any wires on me so I could at least sleep properly! So tonight I'm sleeping in my thicker bunny PJs. I couldn't get back to sleep so I washed my face, got dressed and put some makeup on. It's a really chilled ward, not like when I was in Liverpool and all the lights were on at 7 am! So I just chilled in bed until about 10 and I had some Rice Krispies for brekkie again about 8. I was then taken by the porter to CT at about 11 am for a chest CT, I had to wait for agessss but I had a nap in my chair while I was waiting haha! I had some dye injected for my CT which I've had a couple of ti...

Today's the day! Just wanted to update you on my trip to Wythenshawe for my heart transplant assessment! So the transplant assessment is exactly what it says on the tin, I'm in for three days to have loads of tests done and on Monday I'll meet the big man (the surgeon) and he'll tell me whether I'm going on the list and will go through my results with me. I hope I go on the list to be honest, I think I'll be waiting a while but it'd be nice to just get a definite answer rather than having to come back to be assessed again! I'm starting to get really worried that I won't be able to have a transplant, turns out not everyone can, if the antibodies in your blood are too high your body would just reject one. But I suppose there's no point in worrying until I get the result! So ahead of my admission I had a dietary form to fill out which I mentioned in my previous post, and I had my MRSA swabs done (although they did it when I got here as well wh...

5th December 2017 Firstly, thank you so much everyone for your amazing support on my last blog post. It's so lovely that people can follow my journey without me having to tell everyone over and over where I'm up to! Just a week to go now until my transplant assessment but here's just a little update on life :) I'm struggling this week to get uni work done! My brain just isn't working properly, I keep forgetting when I'm in the middle of doing things, and I can't focus on anything. I've also been rejected for PIP for the second time so I need to appeal that, which is an exhausting process! I feel like I need a secretary to do things for me! I really don't want to drop out of uni, mainly because I wouldn't receive my student loan anymore which is obviously my main income as I can't work, but also because I really wouldn't want to have to go back to do one year once I'm feeling better. So I'm just plodding along and if I don...