Your Immune System is lazy

paddling lazily down a river

I received a phone call on Friday from my Transplant Coordinator, Jennifer. She’s a little thing, always perfectly made up, with a big personality. When I needed an advocacy to get off the prednisone, she was right there helping me. So when she calls, I listen.

“You’re immune system is lazy,” she said. “The BK virus is now much higher. We thought the other meds would get it going, but it’s not. We want you to cut your Cellcept dosage in half.”

It was funny to me that my immune system, particularly my white blood cells. I could see them laughing and playing in pools of my blood and not interested in doing their hard job of fighting infection.

Plus I had noticed that I had a constant runny nose and I was exhausted all of the time. Part of the problem, including my high blood pressure, high pulse, and thinning hair was caused by my thyroid medications being too high. I’m doing something about that and all of those symptoms are getting better.

But a lazy immune system? What could I do for that.

Jennifer explained that the doctors hoped that the drop in Cellcept would get my immune system on the job. Cellcept (Mycophenolate) is an immune suppressor that was used a lot for autoimmune diseases, which are different from genetic diseases by the way.

I do know that the BK Virus, which is named after the researcher who found it, usually comes from the transplanted kidney. The body can usually keep this virus under control, but when you are on immuno suppressants the body can’t fight it. BK Virus was also a factor in kidney rejection before it had been discovered.

I’m not infectious either.

I’ve explained to the doctors my experience with immuno suppressants. When I am on them longer than five years, I start to get a type of anemia where the red blood cells enlarge and so no new RBC’s are generated. Sadly doctor’s don’t always take the patients word for it. They usually have to see for themselves. I do what I have to do to keep a healthy body though.

I’m still carrying a mask around for situations where there is more than two people. I can still get other viruses or bacterias easily.

Photo by Miha Rekar on Unsplash

I’m still very hopeful and it has helped to walk outside and watch the pigeons and blackbirds. They sing to me every morning.