Road Trip

This weekend we are making a trip to Reno to attend Joaquin's fundraiser. We got the okay from Dr Alexander today at clinic and he didn't seem reluctant or concerned about it at all. We will do our labs Saturday and then not have any until Tuesday. Two whole days without labs! But it won't be the first time because we don't have to do labs tomorrow and we didn't have to do any today - all we had was clinic.

Clinic was uneventful - which is always a good thing. They made a few changes in his formula mixture and are talking about changing the type of formula he is getting. His potassium is a little on the high side, which is something we've always struggled with pre-transplant and apparently now post-transplant, but the two are unrelated. And I was confused as to what it meant that he had high potassium post-transplant because it was my understanding that once he was transplanted we wouldn't have to worry about this stuff. Amy wasn't helpful in clearing up the matter when I asked her, but today in clinic Dr Alexander explained that this was caused by his Prograf.

In the beginning of post-transplant life, Joaquin's on higher doses of anti-rejection medicine. After a certain period of time they back off on how much anti-rejection medicine he receives and when they back down on that, his potassium issue should clear up. Apparently, the kidney does not know how to properly deal with potassium when it's simultaneously dealing with larger quantities of Prograf. I'm sure that will come in the next few months along with other changes. Around the 100 days mark, we stop giving other medicines as well such as the anti-viral medicine. I think that by around the six month mark he will be down to just two medicines that he will take the rest of his life.

This week we took my Dad to San Francisco to see the city and to let him indulge in seafood. I had originally enticed him with the clam chowder in a bread bowl but he also had some crab cakes and his favorite: fish and chips.

Today we drove out to Half Moon Bay to just visit the beach. I found the beach that we had frequented last summer but this time you couldn't walk down to the beach because apparently there were some seals that needed to not be disturbed. So we enjoyed the view from the top of the cliff until the clouds rolled in, covered the sun and chilled our bones.

Saturday I will be dropping my Dad off at the airport so that he can fly out by 10:30 a.m., meanwhile Mom will be taking Joaquin to get his labs done after which I will swing back through to pick them up and then we are on the road! And I'm pretty sure I can speak for Joaquin when I say that we are so excited to see everyone!