Holidays: Celebration or Challenge for Transplant Families

@ajdo129, This is a fantastic list of solutions when spending a holiday alone! I plan to bookmark it as a reference for future holidays or special 'alone' days to share with some of my friends as we look for ideas to spend special quiet times together!
I had to smile as I read #5. "My favorite part of my childhood Christmas was the stocking...! We have a delayed Christmas at our home this year, (planned before the storm) and when talking to our 9 year old granddaughter on the phone, her biggest concern about a post-Christmas Family Christmas at our house was, "But grandma, What about my stocking? "I assured her that her stocking would be here waiting for her. Her sigh of relief was priceless!
Barbara, How was your day?

Hi, @jackie421blfdgurl! Happy Healthy Holidays and New Year to you, too. I think this current artic blast has been a challenge to everybody this holiday season. Hope you are warm and able to stay indoors and not travel. Our day was quiet, with our family event planned for January. A happy surprise was that one of our sons announced late Christmas morning that the roads were clear from his home to ours and that he would come for the afternoon!
Jackie, What are your plans for New Year's Eve?

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Hi Rosemary. I am very happy that my creative solutions for holidays alone will help others.

The week of Christmas brought a scare when Mayo asked for an immediate biopsy for Monday the 19th. The blood draw results from the previous week's blood draw had spiked liver enzymes and Mayo was concerned about liver rejection. Happily the biopsy report said the results were "unremarkable". The doctors used to call me "an anomaly" and now I am proud to say that I am "unremarkable"!
So I entered Christmas with renewed hope to see my next visit at Mayo on my 1st anniversary of my April 20th transplant.

Breakfast was with a friend and her daughter as I mentioned in my last post. To my delight, my neighbor invited me to dinner to meet many of the original community members who have lived here 20 or more years. I who have lived here less than 3 years was honored to meet them all.

I was gifted so many sweets and homemade goodies that I fear the results of this morning's blood draw and hope that Mayo takes holiday feasting into account when reading the results.

Thank you for keeping communication flowing. I wish you a happy and healthy new year. Barbara

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Can you believe that we are already a month into the New Year?

@ajdo129,
-Barbara, I hope that you are enjoying an "unremarkable" beginning of the year! I remember the first time that my transplant team used that term during my recovery because I felt that my recovery was "remarkable" (wonderful, amazing).
April is already on my radar, as I will be celebrating my transplant anniversary two days after yours! Have you thought of how you want to celebrate/honor that special day?

-How do you "honor" your transplant?
https://connect.mayoclinic.org/discussion/how-do-you-honor-your-transplant/

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Can you believe that we are already a month into the New Year?

@ajdo129,
-Barbara, I hope that you are enjoying an "unremarkable" beginning of the year! I remember the first time that my transplant team used that term during my recovery because I felt that my recovery was "remarkable" (wonderful, amazing).
April is already on my radar, as I will be celebrating my transplant anniversary two days after yours! Have you thought of how you want to celebrate/honor that special day?

-How do you "honor" your transplant?
https://connect.mayoclinic.org/discussion/how-do-you-honor-your-transplant/

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I am really late coming to this discussion but I hope everyone had a wonderful holiday season and has started the New Year with hope and joy.

As I mentioned, I had Covid at the beginning of the year. I tested positive on December 29th and was finally negative on January 18th. So my year didn't start out great but my symptoms are all gone so I am fine now and totally back to normal.

I always wear a mask whenever I am inside stores, even if they don't seem crowded, or if I am at a crowded outdoor gathering. I try to be reasonable though. A year after my transplant I had Legionairre's disease in December (2017). When the doctor came into my room on the day I was being discharged I asked him if I should avoid holiday gatherings. He crouched down next to me and said that they didn't get me a new liver so I could stay home and look at four walls, to go out and enjoy myself, being careful when I do and obviously staying away from anyone who was coughing or might possibly have any type of germs. Of course things are a bit riskier now with Covid and both RSV and the flu around but I think the same advice applies. The "tripleldemic" has really waned now though.
It had especially high numbers in the Northeast which is where I live but now we can breathe easier. We do have to live our lives being conscious of limitations. I really don't care if I am the only person in a store with a mask on. It's what's best for me.
JK

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Hi Rosemary,
Apologies for letting a few days pass before responding. Generally I like responding with positive comments and creative solutions so I hesitated to answer your "how do you plan to celebrate your 1 year anniversay?"
6 weeks ago I was looking forward to my 1 year marker and I have been planning to see my NC friends gathered over 49 years of living in Durham Chapel Hill area. In 2021 I had tckets to see them (2 years after moving to AZ) when I had to cancel my trip 3 days before my departure because my blood test said something was seriously wrong with my liver.
In the past 6 weeks my blood draws have spiked in liver enzymes after every 4th week draw. Mayo being vigilant called me in for an immediate biopsy to be sure I wasn't going through acute liver rejection. Each time I had to cancel any plans I had made for that week.
Now instead of looking forward to my 1st annivetsay of my transplant, I sit on meedles waiting to see results of my blood tests and any plans I make I add a proviso that I might need to cancel. So far the biopsies are "unremarkable " but we have no idea what is causing the spiking liver enzymes.
I fear that I won't be able to see my NC friends, especially my friend of 51 years who recently was diagnosed with blood and bone marrow cancer.
It's odd how the immediate calls for a biopsy remind me of my and my liver's fragility. So I am just celebrating each day, making loose plans if any and hoping that I can still see my friends in NC.
Barbara

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I would ask your doctor, if you could go for a couple of days, doesn’t hurt to ask

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