Good Results At Tx Clinic

Despite my negative view about the cause of my pain in my last post it seems that the doctor was right about the cause. It was a case of muscular pain which can be worse after you have had shingles he informed me.
Therefore I have decided that I will restrict myself to just I mile (64 lengths) per session of swimming and a max of three times a week for the present. I aim to build up my stamina by adding more crawl in each session.This allows me to do my sessions in about 1.5 hours.

This last week I attended Harefield Hospital for a check up and was seen by Dr Carby. 

I had the usual blood tests,lung function, X-Ray and an additional ECG done. I am now over two years transplanted this was to check my heart was functioning well.

He was very happy to hear about my progress with the swimming and I asked him about holidays, his advise about long haul flying and destinations that I might need to avoid should I travel.He was very supportive and said as I was doing well he had no problems with most places.Food poisoning would be the biggest risk I might face due to my immunity being reduced. He advised me that good travel insurance that would fly me home quickly if things went wrong would be a must.In Europe most people had no problems and some don't bother with insurance. But my thoughts are for far distant lands, America, Japan and Australia so I will have to plan well.The staff at clinic provided me with advice about vaccination and provided a list of travel insurance firms that others had use in the past which was great :) 


How did I do?
My Blood pressure was normal which is good as it had been high.
My Weight had gone down by another 2 kg
My Blood tests showed normal levels and were stable.
My Tracrolimus levels were 5.0  ng/mL  an ideal range.
My ECG was normal
My Lung function was up (due to the swimming I'm sure)
My Xray was normal



I was given four months off clinic and am due to return in March:) The only thing that didn't go well was the weather which was lousy there and back raining constantly, the whole process left me worn out but happy!!

After the Storm

Talking about that we had another competition at the camera club this month. 

The subject was "Weather"

 I put a couple of pictures in as digital entries, but they failed to gain many marks due to the high level of some of the entries. The highest score was 14 for the  picture above taken from Glyne Gap looking toward Beachy Head Eastbourne . This was taken during the summer when we had our holiday in Sussex.

This is a picture that represents for me the end of a storm in my life that was my illness and then my transplant.

I am finally now feeling like life is settled again. 

I am looking forward to a great new year and what it may bring

Finally things have been sorted out with my mother's estate and my brother is in the process of sorting out her house to rent. The financial issues have completed and I will be moving into the new year with less money worries. It will be so hard to spend my first Christmas without her this year and we are both feeling the loss now that everything is over with.
I just know that she will be with us watching over us and our families this festive season and although financially things will be easier now we will still be missing her a lot and I will be attending church to light a candle in her memory over Christmas.

I will also  light a candle for my donor without whom this festive season would not have been possible for me or my family.  

Stuck, don't know what present to give this year  

Give the gift of life 

Sign up as a organ donor Here

Onwards & Upwards To The New Season

I have been continuing with my healthy living and lifestyle and my swimming has been getting better all the time I am now doing 50 lengths per session and am now aiming at improving my stamina.
On my last swim I was able to swim 30 lengths without stopping and am hoping I will be able to get better with time. I am still not swimming the crawl much, the odd length or two during the course of a couple of hours but this is something for the future when I get more strength.I seem to be stuck with 50ish lengths at the moment as sessions last about 2 hours and it is hard to do more in the time. But as I have been told that a mile is approx 65 lengths I hope I will be able to get to this distance soon as my speed increases.

I am still doing well with my diet and it is apparent now that due to my weight loss I will be adding a hole in my belt as I am finding it hard to keep my jeans up now and I'm in danger of losing my modesty if I don't tighten my belt up soon.
The healthy eating (low fat ,low calorie and high fibre) combined with the use of a pedometer has allowed me to up my daily walking and monitor by how much it is increasing. I have yet to to embark on a gym regime at present because an old spinal injury that I found out had got worse again after a recent MRI is playing up. I am hoping that the swimming will help it improve it and then I shall  start to use a static bike and some weights to train with rather than the treadmill.

There is one outstanding issue that I an hoping will get sorted this month that is the persistent intermittent swelling of my right lower leg.This was a slight problem since before the transplant but has got worse since. My Doctor at Harefield feels this would benefit from a abdominal CT scan to see if there is any reason for it happening,therefore I will be going into hospital for a overnight stay to get this done at the end of September.  I will need some hydration and medication overnight before the scan to protect my Kidneys as they will be using contrast dye for the scan and this may affect my kidney function.Hopefully this will provide more info as to the cause and possible treatment for this annoying issue.

Finally it is next week when the new season of my my Camera Club starts on 20th September, and I have been getting some practice in with a photo-walk around the  Rutherford Appleton Laboratory 

STFC Rutherford Appleton laboratory

This is the second year that it has been run and it was a chance to walk around the facilities, learn about the work they do there and take photos there is a chance to enter the photos into a competition and have them published. If you are interested you can see last years winning entries at this page                                    STFC Photowalk competition

I will try to post some pictures that I took there on my next blog post