Journal entry by Marie VerMurlen —
Discharge day! Josh is out of the hospital and back at home with us now. We did all of our training for expectations for clinic days and all of his medications yesterday, and after another day of monitoring his levels and adjusting his medications a little more, he was cleared to come home!
Josh has been doing amazingly - he walked over 3 miles on the hospital floor, and walked out to the car once he was discharged. He's still pretty tired, which is to be expected, as he still has a lot of healing to do. But now he can do that from the comfort of home.
We'll be going into the clinic for labs and seeing the transplant team twice a week to start with, and then taper off the visits once the doctors say his drug levels and labs are looking stable and good. We're also monitoring all of his fluid intake and output closely, but everything has been going great so far. Josh's new kidney is a rock star, and Josh is a trooper in his recovery! So we are very optimistic that things will continue on this trajectory.
Thanks to everyone who has been supporting us through this process, it still doesn't feel real at some times! We're still marveling at all the things we won't have to do anymore, or medical supplies we won't need anymore, and how our routine is going back to more normal. Being on PD for 2 and a half years definitely redefined our normal, and now we'll have to adjust again, but this time for the better!
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