Day 145

It's been a little while since I added to this blog which is a good thing. I've been getting out and doing things. I still feel really good and thanks to my donor, whoever they are, I am getting somewhat back to normal. The Medications   still affect me and upset my stomach from time to time, but that is all manageable.
    I went to Charleston SC last week to visit with my sister, who has been fighting her own battle with cancer, and her husband. They  remodel ships and had a job in Charleston. They rented a house for a couple of months and invited me to visit. Had a great time. It was actually hotter and more humid than Florida. So I'm glad to be back in cool Florida. It's supposed to be 96 today.
    We had our Godson, Michael, here for the weekend. He's 19 and full of energy. I tried to keep up, but I guess I'm not quite there yet. We had a grand time and I hope he did as well. He's really a good kid and so loving.
   I need to get out and do more exercising, but it's just too hot. I've got another Lung Biopsy coming up in 3 weeks. Wish me luck.
 Take care of yourselves.

DAY 136

     Just had Clinic. Great results from the doctor and also the breathing test I took. Dr. Haddad is very pleased with my progress, as am I. As I said everyday gets better and I gain a little more energy and stamina. I left the doctor's office and went to walk the beach. What a beautiful day, nice breeze, waves are a little high and there were a lot of people on the beach. How lucky am I that I get to enjoy this beautiful area? I go back August 10th for another, regularly scheduled, lung biopsy.
     Now I have to figure out a way to start earning some money. You know that four letter word WORK. Anybody have any ideas? I'm probably the only person looking for work, so it should be easy to find a job. Yea, right!
    No profound words today. I just wanted to give an update.
Take care of yourselves.

Day 131

        I know, I'm tardy. Sorry to those of you that read this, and for those of you who don't, too bad. As you might be able to detect, I'm feeling very good. Every day does get better. Mowed the grass, edged and cleaned up all with one break today. That's a milestone! Sleep is much better also, however, I still wake every couple of hours to go to the bathroom. I believe that is because of the antibiotics, which I have 2 more months to take.
     Linda's brother Scott and his son Logan were in town for the long weekend. We had a great time. Restaurants, shopping and beach were the order of the weekend.
      I've got clinic on Monday, we'll see what the Doc says. Maybe he'll cut some of my meds. I'm ready to reduce the amount I take, but I'm not rushing things.
      Sometimes I am amazed at how lucky I am. I forget that someone thought enough of their fellow man to give up their precious organs so some others could extend their lives. Thank you to all of you that are donors and a special thanks to my donor. I am sure without this gift I would not be here. Those of you that are not donors, Think about it, you can find out more information at http://www.organdonor.gov/donor/index.htm
There is also an interesting video of a girl's journey to a 2008 double lung transplant and how she is now. I found it inspirational, but I have a different perspective. If you want to see it go to http://www.onetruemedia.com/otm_site/view_shared?p=75e4469ba801914249b0af&skin_id=701&large
      Take care and love one another!

FYI / Just an interesting article I came across

By Amanda Gardner
HealthDay Reporter

THURSDAY, June 24 (HealthDay News) -- Scientists have succeeded in fashioning a new, healthy lung out of the structural remains of an old one in rats.

The researchers, reporting in the June 25 issue ofScience, hope one day to replicate the feat in humans, giving hope to the millions of people withcystic fibrosis, emphysema, chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD) and perhaps even lung cancer.

But that could take as long as 20 or 25 years to accomplish, warned study author Thomas Petersen, a postdoctoral associate at Yale University.

"What we're talking about is still science fiction, although we're a lot closer now," added Dr. Neil Schachter, a professor of pulmonary medicine at Mount Sinai Medical Center in New York City.

Petersen and his colleagues started with a normal rat lung, then treated it chemically to remove all the cells, a process known as decellularization. This left them with just the lung scaffolding, including the all-important airways and blood network.

"We retained the overall structure of the lung but it was completely free of all cells, as well as components that would be detected by the body as foreign, meaning that the scaffold would not be rejected were you to do a transplant," Petersen explained.

This was the most challenging part of the experiment. "The 3-D structure of a lung is quite complex and it's not something that you can easily make," Petersen explained.

The team then seeded the scaffold with blood vessel cells and airway cells, and then grew the lungs in a bioreactor for about a week. During the culture period, the lungs were made to "breathe" mechanically.

With the newly engineered lung tissue, the group was able to perform four transplants of a left lung back into rats.

"The transplants were maintained for up to two hours and they were functioning in terms of pulling in oxygen and getting rid of carbon dioxide," he said. "The lungs were exchanging oxygen."

Researchers now need to do more experiments in rats, refining the rebuilt lung and extending the duration of the transplant.

"The lungs we have now perform quite well, but they're not perfect," Petersen said.

The process would be much the same in humans, starting with replicating the scaffolding, then repopulating it with new cells.

"The more challenging thing will be to identify the right cells and this will probably involve using stem cells derived from a particular patient," Petersen said.

A separate group of researchers also reporting in Science were able to create an artificial "lung on a chip," basically a miniature model of a working human lung made from cultured human cells from lung and blood vessels.

The manufactured "lung" is about the size of a coin or a pencil eraser.

"We basically used microfabrication techniques that were developed for the computer microchip industry," explained study senior author Dr. Don Ingber, founding director of the Wyss Institute for Biologically Inspired Engineering at Harvard University. These were combined with tissue engineering processes.

"They have constituted in a system which is quite elaborate," Schachter said, adding that one aspect of the model seemed particularly useful: the ability to study the interactions of inhaled toxins much more easily than could be done in existing systems.

Ingber and his group are hoping the lung on a chip can replace animal models as the basis for pharmaceutical research. Animal models, Ingber pointed out, are incredibly costly and take a long time to complete.

On top of that, he said, "animals often don't predict what happens in humans. Our motivation was 'Can we shortcut all that.'"

The group is also working towards developing a "human on a chip," which Ingber said is essentially "making multiple organ-on-chips [e.g., lung, heart, gut, liver, kidney, bone marrow] and linking them together by engineered vascular networks."

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