Five, Four, Three, Two...

There are now two chest tubes remaining as of tonight. Greg has one on his right side and one on his left. Slowly but surely, the blasted tubes are departing and we are not sad to see them leave.Greg also had a bronch tonight and all he remembers is that Dr. Zink said that everything went good. It is kind of difficult to get much more information out of Greg when he was in la-la land during the procedure because of the nifty little drugs they put you on. (smile) (I don't think anyone would ever want to be awake for something like that!) This should be the last bronch until next Tuesday at 9am when we have to go in to get a bronch and biopsy.Yes! I did say "go in"! We were told today by Ann Marie (our transplant coordination) that our discharge is Monday afternoon - as long as the bronch turned out okay today and the chest tubes are out by then. At this rate, it should not be a problem. Greg has one test to pass though before he can run out of hospital - he has a 6-minute walk and spirometry to do well on - that is Monday morning. Then I get to bring Greg "home" to our hotel suite and a week later, we meet with the transplant team again (Monday, 29th) to get the okay to REALLY go home. (Did we tell you how much we miss our bed? *laugh*)New stats:
Greg slept on 1L of oxygen last night as his oxygen saturation went below 90% - this is normal though and as the chest tubes come out and Greg heals, his lung functions will get better and so will his sleep oxygen saturation (without any oxygen) - he will not need oxygen when he leaves the hospital
Greg did over 6 minutes on an exercise bike today - that was on top of getting out of bed, bathing his body (I washed his hair due to his limited mobility in his arms at the moment), dried his own hair, used to sink to brush his teeth and shave, walked around the halls for a while without any support or assistance, used the real bathroom on his own, etc, etc. Of course these things may seem simple but to someone who has just gone through such a surgery, they are milestones to celebrate!
As I said before - 3 chest tubes down and 2 to go
Eating full meals and swallowing is getting better
FEV1 was at 1.60 today (he was at .88 before the transplant!) and it gets better every day (http://www.medterms.com/script/main/art.asp?articlekey=20403) Means his lung functions are better every day!
Training was complete and we are now infection and rejection experts (wink)
Full blood test results came back and Ann Marie said they were "great" for Greg only being 1 week post-transplant. The greatest number was that his creatinine count (http://www.rnceus.com/renal/renalcreat.html) was "0.9", which is GREAT and we are especially happy since a couple of years ago Greg was put on a kidney list as well because he was suffering acute renal failure due to the high levels of antibiotic (Tobra) that was used to save his life when he had pneumonia
Greg is considered ahead of schedule for a CF bilateral transplant patient and the transplant team is amazed. With the extensiveness of the disease in his body pre-transplant, he should not have lived as long as he had and he should have been septic post-transplant, which he was not. I guess they forgot that God was in control of Greg's health - always has been and always will be!
Thank you, Lord!