What's New?

What’s new with Scott the last few days? He is still in the hospital and really not liking it. With everything he’s been through I can’t blame him for getting fed up! The transplant cardiologists say that Scott WILL have the great quality of life they talked about before the transplant. It hasn’t happened yet but it will in time.

Long-term arrangements are being made for dialysis. So far Scott has had ‘prisma’ dialysis in the ICU and Hemodialysis since the transplant. The prisma was done gently all of the time. The Hemodialysis is done at the hospital 3X/week for 4 hours at a time. The concensus seems to be that Scott should have Peritoneal Dialysis now instead of the others. This dialysis can be done at home 4X/day for 20-30 min. each time. It is gentler and requires less diet restrictions. The infection risk is less, especially for a heart transplant recipient. It isn’t for sure yet. They need to assess whether Scott can have the line inserted in his abdominal cavity. That’s where peritoneal dialysis is done. Instead of taking blood out of the body to clean it, fluid is added to the abdominal cavity and filtered through the abdominal wall(peritoneam) and then drained. At least he’d be able to have the line in his neck removed!

One bit of good news is that we have planned for Scott to get out of the hospital on Sunday for Easter dinner. It helps that we’re going to my parents house which is handicapped accessible. Scott hasn’t tried to go up/down stairs yet so he’s not ready to come home quite yet.

Tomorrow Scott has another biopsy after his hemodialysis. Maybe his last hemodialysis?? It will be a very busy day.