Testing-Day 2

Today started out with fasting blood work. The lab tech had a whole pile of tubes to fill with blood. She drained my right arm until it wouldn't bleed anymore, then moved onto my left and filled the remainder of the tubes. We were just leaving the area when she called me back again & had to get 4 more tubes out of my left arm =O   That arm now feels like it has a pulled muscle in it, and if it feels that way tomorrow I will ask if that's normal. I also had an arterial blood gas done, which is where they draw from an artery in your wrist. It hurts more then a normal blood draw, but it wasn't too bad.

I also had pulmonary function testing done today. One test was the customary test where you take a deep breath and blast it out and then continue to exhale as long as you can, and the other test was a walking test. With the walking test, they like to see how far you can walk in 6 minutes, how much oxygen you need, and also to see if you can even walk for 6 minutes straight! I'm glad I've been walking with my friends at pulmonary rehab! I felt pretty confident that I could hold out for 6 minutes, and I did!  lol

We then met with a pulmonary doctor and he went over the test results. He did say that I would be a candidate for transplant at this time, but he has to gather all the test results and submit them to the "transplant board" to see if they think I'm a viable candidate. He said the only things that he thought may give them pause is my atrial heart flutter and history of clotting with PICC lines. I also have some allergies to antibiotics that may throw a wrench in things, because they don't want to go to the trouble of getting new lungs implanted, then have no meds to treat them with if they happen to get an infection of any type.

I am not clear on when we will have an answer from the board. I got the impression it will be a few days. Meanwhile, we still have some consulting appointments tomorrow, then we will be done here!!!

Thanks for the prayers and I am already going to call it a night!