Liver Clinic

Hey all. I am back. I have some good news and some not so good news. James and I spent most of the last week in Edmonton at the liver transplant clinic. We left Monday after work and came home Thursday afternoon.

It was a really long week. It doesn't seem like it should have felt so long. Tuesday was the earliest day with appointments starting at 8 am but all done by 2:30 pm. Wednesday was 12 pm until 2:30, then Thursday was 9 am until 12 pm. It was a lot of information. I suppose it was more the amount of emotions and dealing with difficult things. We didn't get up every day at 6 am to take care of animals and kids, plus go to work all day, yet both of us would have rather had to do that. My mom and James's mom watched our kiddos and took them to activities. Now I suppose I should get on with telling you the details, well some of them. We even got an update today.

Let's start with the not so good news. We learned that James would not be able to have a living donor due to some complications with his condition. So thank you to everyone who considered starting the process to see if they would be a candidate. Now for the "good news". All the doctors and surgeons agreed that James needs the liver transplant. He got a call today, from the liver clinic in Calgary that he is listed on hold pending one more test and the review of the anesthesiologist. Now we need to pack our go bags and prepare all our back up plans. We can't travel more than four hours away from Edmonton from now until well after his surgery. If we leave the province or country he is put on hold (like he is now, listed but not available for transplant) until we return. Needless to say we just won't be going anywhere. We don't want him to miss his chance because we are tempted to go visit or see another place. While it is good that he is listed and should be off hold in the next month or less, it also makes it so real. It has been so much to handle though. Now we are going to spend the weekend doing nothing and allowing our brains to process everything. Yeah we didn't do that, or ok I didn't. I spent most of the weekend cleaning mouse poop out of all sorts of places as they have invaded everywhere.

I got a call Monday from the respiratory clinic. I have sleep apnea. I actually stop breathing 20 times an hour and my oxygen drops to 82% during the longer episodes. Thankfully this is something that can be easily fixed. I even got my trail CPAP Friday. This should help with my fatigue. I am looking forward to waking up and not having a headache and feel well rested (at least on the nights that I sleep well). I know my migraines are probably never going to go away fully but maybe my medicine will have a chance to work. It won't solve everything, but I really don't want to be tired no matter how long I sleep. Yay, for an easy fix! I take it back. four days in and I am so tired from sheer lack of sleep. I have woken up with no headache on two of those days but I am so tired, so maybe a little hard fix.

I am going to shift away from the health stuff completely and go for yummy! While we were in Edmonton, we decided to see if there were gluten free restaurants and/or bakeries that we could try. We found a few options that were close to where we were staying and ordered in two of the nights. Tuesday night we ordered from a completely gluten free Eastern European restaurant, Continental Treat Fine Bistro. So good!!! It was heavenly, but so filling. James had an appetizer and then we ordered two entrees to share, then I had dessert (not dairy free). The appetizer was a whole meal to itself. One cabbage roll was cabbage roll, mashed potatoes and slawish (not sure what else to call it) stuff. Wednesday night we ordered from High Level Diner. This was also very tasty and most of the menu didn't have gluten! We also found a bakery called Food in the Nud! They have a lot of egg free, dairy free, gluten free foods(all gluten free). Some of the stuff we bought was so good and very healthy(chocolate brownie cake, egg free, dairy free and no processed food items). The icing was made from sweet potato and other tasty stuff. Other things were not bad just not good. The bagels were very tasty for gluten and egg free! We also got cinnamon buns(frozen, bring home and bake), which were good but not as good as the ones in Calgary. Now that is all. I should have taken pictures of the yummy foods, some of it was very pretty!

That is the week. Now hopefully the weekend will be uneventful and quiet. Wow this is a very meh post. I really wish that we had a fun update. It is much more fun to write about finishing a project. Talk to you later.