Lealonnie and Hubby: Liver Transplant Journey

fantastic!! :) :) :)

What a great update, Lea!

That's an awesome update! yay!

I am so glad you will be getting to go home. I think we all recuperate better in our own home.

Hurray for Chuck!

What a WONDERFUL update!

May 24, 2022
Caring Bridge Journal Entry
1:00 pm
Chuck had 3 appointments today; labs, an RN visit & a doctor visit with Dr Mayo. His numbers are looking great to the point where his Friday RN & doctor appointments have been canceled! He has a lab visit only on that day to make sure his bloodwork is still on track, and that's it. Dr Mayo told us to enjoy the rest of that day OFF, which we're totally on board with.

If the EMG nerve test doesn't show anything horrible going on, Chuck can get physical therapy back home for his drop-foot issue which seems to be improving with the use of the boot and walking. His last scheduled appointment here in Arizona is on June 3, and barring nothing going wrong in the interim, we will be discharged from the Mayo Clinic and given over to Kaiser care back in Denver meaning we can GO HOME! We would be very happy to do so, although the prospect of leaving the cocoon of safety & efficiency here at the Mayo is a bit scary. We'll take things one day at a time in the meanwhile, however, and enjoy our remaining time here. It's comfortable and we're in good hands here, which is all that truly counts. 

The weight loss has stopped for now and Chuck is back on the upswing!

I posted a photo of him at our kitchen counter eating and looking pretty darn good! He's also back to using his outside voice which is very loud and booming and surprised our support group when he hollered for Honey! 🤣

Hoping your absence for a day means you are taking a few days to catch your breath Lea! Thinking of you. I know we all are.

Lea, how's it going? Hoping Chuck is still making daily improvements? How are YOU doing?

Thank you for sharing your pill system with me graygrammie, I appreciate it. It sounds thorough and rather foolproof; that you would know right away if you missed a pill, which is a great thing. I may try your technique myself! Hugs & thanks again for your continued support.

I'm glad your daughter is back. She seems to be a tremendous source of encouragement to you.

I have a suggestion for your husband's meds that has worked for me. I made a chart with ten meds listed alphabetically per page, with columns labeled Morning, Midday, Evening, Bedtime and in those columns the number of pills he gets per med. I size this chart to take up the full page. I have the pages printed out. When I fill his pillboxes, I go down the list, one prescription bottle at a time, moving them from the left side of the table to the right side as I fill each slot. Then, each time I give him his meds that week, I empty the slot and place each pill on the chart. If I have missed a pill, the number in that column will be uncovered, so I know I need to get that pill. Or if I've got a pill I shouldn't have for that time period, I'll see there is no number on the chart and I can put it back. Since I have four different pill boxes (instead of one of those nice big all week boxes), I also color coded my chart to match the color of the pill boxes.

I think my system is easier to do than to describe! However, if something happened to me, someone else would be able to do his meds for him easily enough I think.

Lea: So glad that you got a few days of rest. You most certainly needed just that. Prayers and hugs sent for continued progress.

Prayers for continued recovery.

Lea, good to read the update. Still praying for continued improvement. (((hugs)))

Thanks so much Colleen & JoAnn. Today has been quiet, for the most part. Chuck has some GI issues and can't eat too much, which is new for him now that he's got a new liver. He's always said he has the 'stomach of a coyote' which doesn't hold true at the moment. But we're doing okay today, thank God. I'm walking around with him in his boot for the drop foot, which is helping his backache (backache is common after these surgeries due to muscles being cut). DD is back and staying at an Air B&B for the next 12 days, so she helped me fill his pillboxes for the next week, which I appreciate; I read the pill names off and she fills. With SO MANY pills to put into the boxes, it's easy to make a mistake, which can be crucial to the liver rejecting. I'm glad she's back. I'm not posting that info on CaringBridge due to the SDs jealous streak, sadly. But WE are thrilled she's back. Family and friends support is so important right now.

I’m glad that I have not seen any further posts about necessary appointments so far this weekend! Yesssss! 😂

Thank you, God, for giving our friends a must needed rest for a few days! 🙏💜

Lea, glad everything is going well with a little hiccup. I am getting tired just reading about the appts you need to go to. Glad that tech was able to give that scan right then. That would have made my day.

I so hope you get home soon. There's no place like home.

Lea, feel free to ignore me if you wish, but I have told you nothing that isn’t true.

Every single person here, Lea, is dealing with some loved one in a stage of medical and emotional crisis that affects the whole family. The fact that it’s you makes your situation like everyone else’s in that way, and most everyone else is not demanding that they hear only what they want.

You keep using the term animal cruelty. As someone who worked in an agency directly enforcing animal cruelty statutes for a decade, persistent barking in and of itself is not anywhere NEAR animal cruelty. It is a nuisance matter. You went to your Marriott to request that the nuisance be removed.

Thats fine. It’s also fine if you really don’t care that this other family may have an excuse for it, such as having to keep a deathwatch vigil on hospice. Or being the family of a potential donor on life support. Whatever the reasons they may have, it’s a valid argument that it’s not your business.

Its not your biz either to pontificate that the dogs MUST be neglected or abused because their behavior annoys you. Fact is you don’t care what the family circumstances are, but you’re purely speculating that they must be bad dog parents publicly regardless..

Own it.

ITRR: thank you for being understanding to the reality of the situation here! These dogs next door are stressed out to the max, barking, crying, howling and scratching at the door for 12+ hours at a pop, obviously not being let out to do do their business outside either. The desk clerk said she'd had dozens of complaints besides mine, and I was to the point of wearing earplugs, literally, yesterday morning to deal with their misery. That's animal cruelty in my book, whether they're left in a 'Marriott' hotel or their own home or the backyard. The hotel manager did the right thing by issuing the owners an ultimatum; either calm the dogs down or leave the property. The matter was remedied w/i 15 minutes; I believe they put the dogs in their kennels vs. letting them roam the room freely, which calmed them down. Hopefully the owners came by throughout the day yesterday also to let them go outside to do their business. Responsible pet ownership is an important thing.

PeggySue, I am ASKING you to stop commenting on my discussion thread which has to do with my caregiving journey with my DH and his liver transplant. Obviously I can't 'make' you stop leaving argumentative comments that stress me out further, which is why I'm ASKING you to stop. If you insist on leaving more comments, I'll just ignore them and you from here on out. What I need is support and decency right now, nothing else, period.

Lea, I have a service dog and nothing is more heartbreaking and nerve racking then having some idiot dog owner leave their pet to be a stressed out nuisance for anyone within ear range.

It is irresponsible and cruel to put these dogs through the trauma they are feeling to behave as they are. There is no excuse and I am happy to hear that the hotel is dealing with it.

I am so sorry that you guys have been subjected to this during a time when you really need peace, quiet and calm.

I pray that The Lord touches Chucks body and heals him from everything that is going on.

Lea, no one here gets to be the admin here unless they are one. Meaning that if you have an issue, you take it up with them as opposed to issuing requests yourself. No one else gets to do it themselves, Lea.

The same goes for this Marriott. If you went to management and they said they’d talk to them, well they may or may do that in the time frame you wish. But fact is that your dog is just someone else’s dog to almost everyone too. That’s why I pointed out that they put the pet people together.

I am advocating in this situation that you be compassionate about it.

PeggySue, perhaps you have NO IDEA what it's like to be listening to howling dogs for hours on end while trying to recover from a liver transplant. Your friend in the hospitality business is wrong. The manager issued the pet owners a stern warning that they'd be asked to leave if the animals did not stop barking right away.

I've asked you to stop commenting on this thread, and you're still here commenting. So I'll ask you once again to please STOP commenting on this thread. Thank you.

no appointments for the weekend no appointments for the weekend no appointments for the weekend no appointments for the weekend... but those booties make Honey look like she's ready for *something* this weekend :-)

Some dogs are going to bark in an unfamiliar environment. If they are getting water, food and shelter, it’s not animal cruelty by definition. They’re in a literal Marriott, so I doubt these other tenants are starving them.

If they are there on vacation they should be gone after a week. If not perhaps they have a medical or personal crisis going on.

You can ask to be moved to another room in the development, but my friend in hospitality tells me there are only so many rooms for people with pets.

Apparently, drop foot isn't all that unusual for transplant patients to develop after surgery; a few of our Kaiser support group members had/have it too, as it turns out! The boneheaded doc in the ED yesterday had us nerved up by not recognizing the normalcy of it and saying it was likely a 'large hematoma in his belly pressing against his spinal cord'. :(

So far, so good..........no appointments, no calls, no bad news........just 2 dogs howling and barking in the room next door. I called the manager and said I'm ready to have a meltdown, PLEASE make these dogs stop barking/howling somehow, this is animal cruelty what their owners are doing (they barked/howled for 12 hours straight yesterday!!). So about 15 minutes later, it stopped. Thank GOD.

I am going to spend the weekend muttering "no appointments for the weekend" over and over again. We are babysitting for a foster dog in our rescue. Either a Taiwanese wild dog or a Carolina Wild Dog and while he is cute as anything he is one major piece of work. Heaven knows what I will be muttering by end of week.

Lealonnie I am shouting out loud with you NO APPOINTMENTS FOR THE WEEKEND!!! You both need a break. Here's to hoping that you're both just relaxing and enjoying each other.
May you continue to see God's hand in this journey that you and Chuck are on.

From May 21, 5:30 pm:

Well, we just got back from doctor's appointments and then the Emergency Room where we spent 3 hours with DH, who has a drop-foot. He had a CT scan there which shows no problems like hematomas or tumors inside of his body, fortunately, so the conclusion is that it's a nerve issue in the peroneus calf muscle of his right leg. This can sometimes happen after surgery and/or laying around a hospital bed for 9 days as he did after his second surgery. That was the neurologist's conclusion who's ordering an EMG test for him next week. In the meantime, he's wearing a boot on his leg while walking around to prevent him from catching his toe and falling (which is the last thing we need to happen!)  

Let's all say this together: NO APPOINTMENTS FOR THE WEEKEND! We are going to relax and do nothing for the next two days. We are going to eat healthy food, relax on the couch and/or out by the pool if the heat of the sun isn't excruciating, and sleep late. No Emergency Rooms. No pharmacies. Nada. Zip. Just one weekend off.

Lea: Those booties are so cute.

Honey looks like she thinks those booties are for the birds.