An update on the health front
Hello all!
First off, allow me to thank you all for all the love. It's been helping me get through a time that is remarkably tougher than what I'd ever wanted to face.
Now, to fill you all in, here is the course of events from my point of view.
For the last few months, I've been feeling tired. Now, because of the lifestyle I lead, which can clinically be defined as "Gil is a batshit crazy person who's going to work himself into an early grave and laugh the entire way", this was rather hard to quantify, but there were some warning signs. Sadly, none of them translated into anything medically relevant.
Fast forward to this past Tuesday night. After class, coming up from Market East Station, I was winded, badly, after one flight of stairs. Thinking that this was a bad thing, I called the clinic first thing Wednesday morning, and got an appointment for Thursday morning. That night, at Nocturne, I was totally fine.
Going through the tests on Thursday, the doctors found enough wrong with me to say "we gotta admit you right away", which was not what I was expecting (for comparison's sake, the last time I had a problem, they upped my prednisone for five days and I hit a creative peak like none other in my life).
Now we get to yesterday, Friday, and my day of relative silence. After some false negatives, some false positives, and one partial diagnosis that had me actively contemplating going into a surgery that would remove the rest of my organs and give them to other people needing them rather than ever going through the Hell that is waiting for a new heart ever again, we were able to identify what I was going through as a humoral rejection (because if I'm going to do it, it's gotta be funny, right? Right?).
So the plan now is this. Every couple days, I go through aphoresis, which is kind of like dialysis in that they remove my blood, clean it a bit, and throw it back into me, and then run me through IVIG. Then they will run me through another medicine that I forget the name of. Then I sit on my ass for two days. Then we rinse and repeat. This will be my life for the next two weeks. Following that, I will continue to see them for another two weeks on the outpatient side for two weeks (assuming everything has gone well).
In the meantime, well wishes are appreciated, visits are appreciated, etc. I don't know exactly when I'm available, but if you cannot get a direct hold of me, grab a hold of my family, my partners, my close friends, etc, who might know better what's going on.
With lots of love,
~Gil
First off, allow me to thank you all for all the love. It's been helping me get through a time that is remarkably tougher than what I'd ever wanted to face.
Now, to fill you all in, here is the course of events from my point of view.
For the last few months, I've been feeling tired. Now, because of the lifestyle I lead, which can clinically be defined as "Gil is a batshit crazy person who's going to work himself into an early grave and laugh the entire way", this was rather hard to quantify, but there were some warning signs. Sadly, none of them translated into anything medically relevant.
Fast forward to this past Tuesday night. After class, coming up from Market East Station, I was winded, badly, after one flight of stairs. Thinking that this was a bad thing, I called the clinic first thing Wednesday morning, and got an appointment for Thursday morning. That night, at Nocturne, I was totally fine.
Going through the tests on Thursday, the doctors found enough wrong with me to say "we gotta admit you right away", which was not what I was expecting (for comparison's sake, the last time I had a problem, they upped my prednisone for five days and I hit a creative peak like none other in my life).
Now we get to yesterday, Friday, and my day of relative silence. After some false negatives, some false positives, and one partial diagnosis that had me actively contemplating going into a surgery that would remove the rest of my organs and give them to other people needing them rather than ever going through the Hell that is waiting for a new heart ever again, we were able to identify what I was going through as a humoral rejection (because if I'm going to do it, it's gotta be funny, right? Right?).
So the plan now is this. Every couple days, I go through aphoresis, which is kind of like dialysis in that they remove my blood, clean it a bit, and throw it back into me, and then run me through IVIG. Then they will run me through another medicine that I forget the name of. Then I sit on my ass for two days. Then we rinse and repeat. This will be my life for the next two weeks. Following that, I will continue to see them for another two weeks on the outpatient side for two weeks (assuming everything has gone well).
In the meantime, well wishes are appreciated, visits are appreciated, etc. I don't know exactly when I'm available, but if you cannot get a direct hold of me, grab a hold of my family, my partners, my close friends, etc, who might know better what's going on.
With lots of love,
~Gil