EMILY UPDATE:
As updated on Friday, Emily came through the surgery well and is currently in intensive care. They made an attempt to wean her off her ventilator today, but she didn’t take to it too well and has been sedated again. This isn’t a major issue, as it is quite common for the de-ventilation (as it were) to take a little while, what with the mixture of sedation, pain meds and new cocktails of anti-rejection drugs. She has become slightly more awake and alert at points and is showing good signs of her old bubbly personality in flashes, so things are looking cautiously optimistic at the moment.
As for me, well, the last two days have been pretty up and down.
One of the weirdest things at the moment is how other people seem to think that I’d be really adversely affected by Em’s transplant – perhaps expecting me to be jealous or angry, the old “why not me?” chestnut.
But the truth is, I don’t feel anything like that at all. I’m completely overwhelmed with joy for Em and her family and devoted boyfriend – I couldn’t be happier for them all, and especially seeing such a close friend going through what we’ve both been hoping for for the last two years. It feels odd, because there’s a part of me that thinks I should be feeling some pangs of jealousy or upset, but it just isn’t there.
It has made me think a lot more about my own transplant, but actually in a much more positive light. I have to confess that I have had moments, particularly over the last few weeks leading up to Christmas, where I have been doubting my conviction that this will come for me, and I still don’t like to hear people talk about it with such certainty in their voices.
But I know that Em has been through patches like me as well – particularly in the summer when she had an exceptionally bad spell and was touch-and-go for a while, and we spoke about it afterwards. And I know that although she had her doubts, she never lost faith and never stopped fighting, right up to her call. She’s set a kind of positive-thinking example to me and perked up not only my enthusiasm, but also my previously rigid belief that this will come for me too.
Secretly, I also have to admit I’m quite pleased she got in there first, because she’ll now be on hand to help talk me through all the relevant stages of post-op recuperation as I come across them!
The last few days have been a bit rubbish for me, though, since I’ve started to feel really sick after my evening meal for the last three nights in a row now and the pattern is becoming a little disturbing.
The first night, on Friday, I had a horrible moment of thinking I was coming down with the same virus that hit K on Christmas day and that has slowly been working its way through her family. But so far I’ve not actually been sick.
Another theory that struck me yesterday was that, having spent two afternoons back at the flat trying to get it ship-shape before we aim to move back in over the next couple of weeks, all the dust and stuff we’d been kicking up has upset my chest and made me more productive, which in turn I’ve been coughing up and swallowing a lot – causing not-too-goodness in my stomach.
Although that seemed a plausible explanation yesterday, it seems less so today, when I’ve done nothing but chill out at my ‘rents. And it also doesn’t explain why it’s only in the evenings, either.
It’s not too bad, just annoying that I can’t seem to eat in the evenings without feeling like I’m going to hurl for a couple of hours afterwards. It goes off slowly over the course of the evening, but it’s not very pleasant to have to put up with.
Still, things could be worse and my chest is still doing very well a week into the New Year. I’m waking up every morning with lots of energy and get-up-and-go and I’m hopeful of a successful move back to the flat in the coming week or so, which will be lovely not just for K and me, but doubtless for Mum and Dad, too.
So next week is a chance to start focusing back on work, with the start of a new term at MKT and a show to build towards, as well as time to start turning my attention to the next issue of CF Talk. And then, of course, there’s all my writing projects, too….