One year out, gone through my annual physical, everyone tells me how good I look and how well I am doing. Believe it was two weeks later I awaken about 1 am with a fever of 105. Feel so bad I cannot get out of bed, achy, nauseous, dizzy, cramping – just want to crawl into a hole and die bad. Thankfully my cell phone is within reach, I call dad – he comes in takes my temp again 106. He calls the On Call Transplant Coordinator who asks if I am in Emergency yet, and then why not.

Getting out of bed is a monumental effort, sliding on the jeans & t-shirt takes all my concentration. It takes 30 minutes to get out of the room and downstairs as walking is almost too much effort. Dad threatens to call the ambulance several times with me refusing (I still remember the charges from the last time). Finally get into the car and we race to Thornton Hospital, by now the Transplant Coordinator, Suzanne, has called in and they are waiting, I am rushed into an exam area, vitals checked, blood drawn…. I remember signing some papers, and then being put into the cat scan, then coming to in the ICU. I turned on the TV and was puzzled as to why there is football on so many stations, the nurse comes in and tells me it is Sunday why wouldn’t there be? This is news to me as last I remember was Monday morning….

There is still debate as to what happened that night (and in the days that followed), popular belief is that one of the immunosuppressant drugs (Cellcept) was working too well allowing a virus to penetrate my system, while another drug (Prednisone) covered its effect until everything cascaded. All in all I was lucky, I lost a week of time that I will not recover – and yes there are some interesting stories as to things that happened then…. Apparently I was hallucinating quite extensively during that time, I also received another scar on my belly where they did exploratory surgery to see what was going on inside. I remember none of it.

Spent another week in ICU before being transferred to a private room. Once again I had an IV tree with more bags, pumps, whistles and bells than you would think possible. I was still too weak to get out of the bed other than to stagger to the recliner (with assistance) to watch TV. After several days in the private room, and eating solid food once again, I begin to recover my strength, I am able to do short walks using a wheelchair to support myself and trail my IV tree. A week later there is talk of going home, although I will need to continue my IV antibiotics for a week through UCSD Home Infusion.