New Medicines

I went to Christ yesterday to talk about my medicines. They actually told me that I qualify to be part of a study. Here's how I understand it.

There are two different kinds of immunosuppresant drugs: induction and maintenance. The induction drugs "induce" your immune system sto stop working. The induction drugs are given through an IV in the operating room and then 4 more times every other day.
Once your immune system has been suppressed then the maintenance drugs take over and I take those forever.

But there is one maintenance drug that they think I can start two weeks before the surgery (yesterday-ish) and then I won't need as much of the induction drug. So I started taking this medicine yesterday and will continue it until the day of the surgery. They will still draw blood to decide if it's working like they thought it would. And if it doesn't seem to be working then they will just give me the regular doses of the induction drugs.

Yucky Arm

My fistula is gross. If you've seen it lately you'd agree...although you wouldn't say anything because you're too nice! And many of you have asked if they will "take it out" after the transplant. The answer is no, they won't. BUT, one of the nurses told me today that it should shrink after not being used. It will take a while, but it will go down, and I'm so excited!!