This album by P. Diddy was certified platinum (shortly after the last few girls I’ve dated were born) and during a rather interesting time in my life. I had recently been engaged, and even more recently un engaged while trying to work a full time internship with UPS and play in a semi-pro men’s summer baseball league. Keeping my skills sharp were top of mind while making money was top of the agenda. Lol

I remember it like it was yesterday.

Anyway, what I remember from yesterday and will also likely always remember like yesterday is crying myself to sleep after this very painfully real and painful setback in my kidney transplant recovery.

It all began two weeks ago after some routine lab work indicated a very low white blood cell count. For those of you who skipped this section in med school I will kindly elaborate. White blood cells are the main portion of the body’s immune system, protecting it from infectious diseases, viruses, and any foreign invaders. This is where the cool kids leave the conversation and the smart kids see my conundrum. Keeping my immune system low is important so that Marcus’ kidney isn’t rejected and yet I need protection from general and specific things floating around.

Friday, a week later and two Granix booster shots taken, my blood count was still dangerously low. At the same time, I had begun to fight off an annoying irritated eye thought to be a reaction to the seasonably high pollen counts here in Durham.

By Monday, the irritated eye inconveniently became my infected eye and basically swelled shut. I reported to the ER late Monday evening a bit scared of how to get around this immune system issue.

After a day or so of testing, literally everything -I had another shot of Granix with the rationale being if we can get the white blood cell count going it could help clear up the eye. Well, what the granix booster did was give me some pretty unbearable back spasms. An apparent affect of too high of a concentration.

My doctors approved a big boy of pain meds and proceeded with another round of Granix Wednesday (Most of the crying was here). Today, my eye has resumed a somewhat symmetrical shape within my face yet a bit red and slightly swollen still.

No more granix for now while we wait for a completely new game plan of med treatment to be devised parallel to a much needed stabilized white blood cell count. Not too high, but not too low either.

The tears I shed were three fold; pure pain, fear, and partial defeat as I promised myself along side betting a nurse I’d not wind up back here like she had previously called out many patients do, eventually.

I temporarily lost sight of where I was literally and figuratively in my health journey. As the level nine pain subsided (10 should be reserved for child birth) I began to realize every race is different, further that mine is an obstacle course and it won’t benefit anyone but the Devil if I cry every time I have a hurdle to leap. The support from the staff, my family and my parents has been immense.

I’ve shamefully kept this less public because I had no clue of the direction and partly because it was hard to find time to think through a message delivery. But I also know the support from friends is essential.

Appreciate the few prayers of those who have stumbled across my text this week and thanks in advance for those who will continue lifting me up going forward. I expect to be released from the hospital this weekend after some more monitoring and finalizing of medicine regiment takes place.

Be encouraged.

For those of you joining this journey after a few twists, please feel free to start from the beginning or ask any and all questions!

xoxo

Aaron

The Saga Continues…