I spoke too soon.
Patrick received a call a couple days ago about a test result from the Seattle trip. It was his transplant coordinator saying a certain number was too high so they wanted to bring his Mycophenolate dose back up to where it was, 1,000mg per day. He is experiencing a rejection. They aren’t too worried about it, but since he is still within the “new” category of heart transplants less than two years out, its better to manage it with medication than to wait and see how it plays out.
I wish I knew more about it. Patrick fielded that call and relayed his usual 5% retained information back to me. I may ask him to call the coordinator to have her explain it again so I can understand more. Apparently the Tacrolimus and Mycophenolate work to protect against rejection but in different ways, so they are keeping with the plan to lower the Tacrolimus, while increasing the Mycophenolate.
I may just refer to them as Tac and Myc from now on. Tack and Mike. That saves me some headache trying to type words I am not familiar with.
In my previous post I mentioned living every day like it is your last. We had a situation yesterday that put the fear of God into everyone in our van.
We were driving home from town and were on the 40 MPH road by our house. Patrick had begun to slow down and had his blinker on to turn left into our road, had turned the wheel, and the van had just begun to move in that direction when a large crew cab Dodge pickup BLEW past us on the left, quite obviously going faster than the speed limit.
They say your life will flash before your eyes in moments when you come close to death. Patrick was driving, behind him sat our 18-year-old with special needs, and behind her sat our 16-year-old. In that moment I knew he could have killed them instantly, and injured or killed myself, our 5-year-old, and our 13-year-old.
Everyone I care most about on this earth were in that van last night, and it could have ended horribly. I remember the air pressure shaking the van as the driver sped past, and as Patrick realized what was happening the exact split-second he needed to.
Patrick gave chase, as I knew he would, and we pulled into the dump behind the guy as he had his doors open while parked next to a dumpster. Patrick rolled down his window, and the young man immediately approached. He looked to be late 20’s, maybe early 30’s. He was shaking, and I was mad.
If you knew you nearly killed a family, why would you not stop? There is something going on in that man’s heart that I don’t like, based on that act alone.
He did apologize profusely after Patrick rather calmly stated he almost killed our entire family. He explained something about being cut off and getting mad at the other driver, and then speeding out of anger, which is when he passed us.
Hot headed. I think that’s probably a good term for him. His road rage attitude nearly ended everything for us.
Luckily, he and Patrick spoke and the man apologized again and again, even once directly to me, rather genuinely.
But… Damn. That was scary.
And I had the opportunity to kindly remind Patrick he needs to be aware of traffic both in front of him and behind him (which is something he has always bragged about doing…)
So, you never know. Hug your loved ones today.
I’ll update the blog again when we know more. If we do call the transplant coordinator and I find out more about Patrick’s rejection situation I will definitely post an update. Until then I will keep reminding Patrick to TAKE NOTES.
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