Friday, September 30, 2005
Jim has an appointment with Dr. Chaux at Cedars-Sinai on Monday morning. This does not mean that he has been qualified as a transplant recipient, but it is one step closer than he got with UCLA. They will draw buckets of blood on Monday and get the qualification process started. The fact that they called [...]
Friday, September 30, 2005
We are all set to move on Saturday. Very kind, strong uncles and very kind, strong Ramin will be rolling up their shirt sleeves to get the job done. In other news, we have found someone to take all the office furniture. What a relief! Clever Tricia somehow tricked some of her friends into taking [...]
Tuesday, September 27, 2005
We are moving Jim into the guest room at our place and need some help on a couple of things.
Monday, September 26, 2005
UCLA has declined to do Jim’s transplant because the fibrosis in his upper lungs would make the surgery too difficult. I guess UCLA has great stats because they leave the difficult cases for the other transplant programs. Do I sound bitter? It’s hard to be gracious under the circumstances. One of the country’s finest transplant [...]
Monday, September 26, 2005
Richard Allan Glenn has cystic fibrosis and is going to die if he does not get a double lung transplant. Medicaid says the transplant is too risky to justify the expense, so it won’t pay for it. What would you do if Medicaid wouldn’t pay for your transplant?
Tuesday, September 20, 2005
Last night Jim called a family meeting, so his sisters came over, I reheated left over pasta and his dad poured a glass of wine. Jim had been thinking about how he wanted his life to be between now and the transplant and wanted to tell all of us what he had decided.
Wednesday, September 14, 2005
Transplant Journey is a photo-documentary about people in Philadelphia and Los Angeles waiting for transplants as well as those who donated organs.
Wednesday, September 14, 2005
Last night Jim made a little room for my blog on his server and moved the old blog here. Now I get to use Movable Type, which will be much better than Blogger. No more confusing anonymous comments via the Blogger comments tool. Hurray. The one downside is the mobile blogging aspect. We’re still working [...]
Monday, September 12, 2005
The future is here. Well that’s not really accurate. Jim’s oxygen has no flavor or scent. He likes it straight up.
Monday, September 12, 2005
Dr. Ross has Jim’s file and is reviewing it. UCLA is Jim’s first choice, so we are really hoping that they will accept him to the transplant program. Dr. Kahan has indicated that UCLA has a rigorous review process, so Jim may have to be tested all over again. I guess we’ll be in a [...]
Sunday, September 11, 2005
We won’t know a lot about the transplant process until we meet with Dr. Ross, the transplant coordinator at UCLA. Hopefully we will be able to get an appointment with him this week. Jim will have to go through an evaluation process before he is approved for the transplant wait list. In the meanwhile, if [...]
Saturday, September 10, 2005
Jim is getting around much better now that he has the oxygen concentrator. It has a super long tube that can reach any room in the condo. We’ve stashed the concentrator and the extra bottles in a closet so that we can’t hear it or see it. We’re thinking of painting the tubing blue and [...]
Friday, September 9, 2005
Oxygen Guy: Oxygen is an accelerant, so you need to keep these bottles seven to ten feet away from open flames. No smoking anywhere near here. Kristen (Jim’s Sister): They are so depressing. We’re going to decorate them. Jim: With candles. Oxygen Guy: (stops dead in tracks) You guys are funny.
Friday, September 9, 2005
We went to see Dr. Kahan today to learn more about the lung transplant and to see how Jim is doing. We talked more about Jim’s current breathing problems than we did the transplant. His oxygen levels are not as good as they were when he left the hospital, so Dr. Kahan ordered a chest [...]
Tuesday, September 6, 2005
Jim just got off the phone with Dr. Kahan. I honestly understood very little of what Jim just told us. The bottom line is that the news was not good. There is nothing to treat, no inflammation, no malignancy, nothing. Jim’s lungs are wrecked, so he needs a lung transplant. We knew that this was [...]
