I’ve  been home as long as I was gone. Exactly one month. That milestone occurred yesterday, so I celebrated it by, what else? Making a trip to Stanford!

The trip west yesterday was all about complications, not the actual transplant. I  had two appointments. One was to see the skin cancer doc because last week I found a little bump on my side, and one for a repeat ultrasound to check on my blood clot.

They biopsied this little bump, that sort of popped up last week, because I’m a post transplant patient.  Yesterday I got a call from the doctor letting me know it was a ruptured cyst with a little bit of infection. It’s not a big deal. They were going to put me on antibiotics, though, mostly because I am a post transplant patient. I wouldn’t need to see the cancer doctor after all. That appointment had been made by mistake. That was a little sigh of relief.  Do I need skin cancer too? I may have already lost my hair, but seriously, I don’t have TIME for that too!

I was down to one appointment then. All I had was the ultrasound. I hope it’s getting smaller. I’m injecting myself daily with a blood thinner and although I have gotten really good at it, I wouldn’t mind stopping. The imaging technician mentioned that they rarely treat ones in the calf, but of course, but I finished her sentence. I know, it’s because I’m a post transplant patient.

When I’m not making trips across the bay, I’m keeping pretty busy at home. I have plenty to do without pet sitting visits. Working out, drinking coffee…it all takes time. I always used to joke that when I was younger, I wanted to be at a stay-at-home-mom without any kids. (No longer true of course…now that I have given birth to my precious munchkins, I wouldn’t change a thing) But you get the idea. Anyway, I’m liking my life. It doesn’t matter how I got here. I still like it.

Running is getting slightly easier. I’m alternating walking and running and I find myself feeling just a little bit more normal each time. I can run a tenth of a mile at my normal pace. Now I  just need to string together a whole ton of those and I can run with my friends again. I am very determined to get there!

I do have a cycling event coming up, so I’ve been mindful that I might actually want to train for it. I mean, most people do. And after all, I am a post transplant patient. 🙂 I rode up to the “junction” of  Mt Diablo last week with my friends, Margaret and Renate. It’s a reasonable stopping point before pushing the final 4 miles to the top, but it’s not exactly easy to get to, either. It’s about 2500 feet of climbing over about six miles. You have to like ‘up’ or it’s not a lot of fun. And a tip, have good brakes for the ‘down’!

We planned another trip up the mountain Tuesday but when we got to the state park gate, I couldn’t seem to clip in after a brief stop. That would be because I didn’t have a pedal! We found part of it nearby, but the bottom section must have fallen off somewhere else on our four mile trip out there. I was going to buy a new set but without the luxury of time to order online, it was going to be pricey.

Margaret thought she had a heard a noise somewhere and texted me, suggesting we go looking for it, just as I was thinking the same thing. We walked along Citrus Avenue, about a half mile from her house. There it was in the street, and Margaret spotted it….3 more pieces anyway. When I got home, I could see I was missing one more piece and one screw. Another trip out to the gate was fruitless. Until I thought about it. Maybe the last piece was still stuck in the cleat. Bingo! I was good to go with a 47 cent screw, as opposed to $115 for pedals.

I feel like I lead a charmed life. Well, most of the time, anyway.

I’ll be posting about the event on Saturday which will celebrate Day 60 post transplant. It’s a bit of a milestone. I can quit wearing my hepa mask, even in a medical facility or around a construction site. I thought about tossing it away after my appointment, yesterday. But that was Day 57. And I had to get through today and tomorrow before I reach Day 60. And what with me and complications, well, I am not tempting fate. I am a post transplant patient, after all. 🙂