MIRACLES NEVER DO CEASE.
11.5.12
5:30am at Stanford hospital was buzzing with people getting ready for their various procedures. Mine was scheduled for 7:15am.
Side bar: I'm still amazed that surgeons operate well that early in the morning. If I were a surgeon all of my operations would happen after lunch - the complicated ones after some Cafe Rio.
We waited to be taken back for about an hour so I thought everything would be delayed. Nope. The time between 6:30 and 7:00 was crazy - getting into the sexy gown, playing 100 questions with the pre-op nurse about my health, my corpse-like heart rate, and the cocktail of drugs I'm on (ha - I wish.) I asked the nurse if there was time to swing by and see Kelsey, Bob & Molly to which she replied that they didn't do that and was shocked I even asked. Supremely disappointed, I started to text my well wishes to them. About 10-minutes later I was surprised by the Hamricks and my parents walking into the pre-surgery area (the Hamricks have serious GREASE anywhere they go, BTW.) What a sweet reunion that was! Usually they only allow a guest or two in the back to wait with the patient and, fortunately, the surgical teams were very gracious in allowing a herd of happy, jokey people with cameras back there to give hugs, take a ton of pics and create all kinds of ruckus. After a few minutes, it was time. The hugs and tears flowed as we said our goodbyes and anticipated healthy hellos that afternoon. After one of the surgeons came over and initialed the surgical area, Mom even wrote a special note "this side only" to ensure they were on the right side. Had the marker been a little more user friendly, I'm sure she would have written a rhymy poem, drew a picture of a tree or a deer or something.
(EF is one of the surgeon's initials)
The things I put my poor parents through. I told them that with all of the things I do, sports played, the way I drive, the traveling to foreign countries alone....this is the safest thing I think I'll ever do - surrounded by medical professionals night and day making sure nothing could ever go wrong. Mom glared at me.
But see...they don't look scared:
(Now for some excerpts from doctors based on what I think I thought I heard and what I have been told about what went down...)
My procedure was expected to take 3-4 hours with Kelsey's being 4-5 hours. In actuality, hers and mine were both a little over 2 hours each - a very unexpected and great surprise for the surgical team (and the mommys and daddys, I'm sure.) The surgeon came out to speak with my parents and used the word "miracle," as transplants NEVER take place without some sort of hiccup and both of our surgeries were textbook. He also said that they usually have to give the kidney a little jolt to get it started but as soon as they unclamped Righty, she started working immediately. GO GIRL!
In the recovery area I felt like I had been hit by a truck with the most pain coming from my left eyeball. (**What the heck??? Did they accidentally do an eyeball transplant?**) I couldn't open it for the entire first day between the swelling and pain. The medicinal reason for it was that I had been pumped full of fluids during the surgery and was positioned on my left side sloping downward so it all went to the left side of my face. (My reason?....**someone on my cut-team punched me in the eye.**) Boy, oh boy, it hurt along with the new scar on my side/back. I remember joking with the guys wheeling me to my room to be careful because I was heavy and I didn't want them to get a backache from pushing me so far. I'm sure I was spewing other vocal delights that, luckily, I don't recall.
As soon as Kelsey's surgery was done they came in and told me that the kidney was already producing fluid at large amounts and she was doing very well. **HAPPY!** Dr. Concepcion also shared that my left kidney was a machine and was producing tons of pee. Who would have thought we could all be that excited about pee? The next couple of days were a bit of a fog. Here are some of the things I do remember:
* Never had a catheter before. Never want one again. I was counting down the hours until that sucker was removed. Fortunately, I had mine out after 24-hours. Poor Kelsey had hers for a couple extra days. She should get a lifetime supply of cupcakes for that. As soon as it was taken out, I realized I was on my own to go to the bathroom. HOLD.THE.PHONE. I just gave birth to a bouncing baby kidney and you want me to get up out of this bed and walk to the bathroom, sit down and go? Not just that, but with the amount of fluids they were pumping into the IV, I was going every 20-minutes for the first couple of hours. I had to ask them to reduce the fluids so I could get some rest, which they did thankfully. My mom and I got intimately close during that first day and a half. She saw things she hasn't had to in over 35-years. And now she's got something over on me when she goes senile and needs help with the potty.
* I never got used to the twice daily shot of Heparin. 'Good afternoon! It's 1pm...time for your shot.' 'Good evening! It's 1am...time for your shot.' That stuff burns! And leaves awesome bruises. Who wants to be woken up in the middle of a night for a shot? The other delight was the 6am daily blood draws. Apparently blood flows like wine at that early hour.
* During my mentally questionable stage on the first day, I vaguely recollect a few conversations between the nurses and doctors and my folks about whether or not I was an athlete. Apparently the heart rate blood pressure thingermajigger was constantly on alarm due to the low numbers. Am I an athlete? Negative. Do I like to go run around, do dumb things and fall down a lot? Perhaps. I guess that puts me in a separate category of an "athlete" according to medical standards. I'm going to embroider MEDICAL ATHLETE on my sweatshirts and soccer jerseys. Anyway, the first two days the heart rate was registering below the 40's and 50's depending on time of day. Blood pressure was like 80 over / corpse....which meant I was lucky to be visited every hour on the hour by nurses taking my vitals, temperature, asking me my name and date of birth (some new hospital standard to make sure patients are the right ones.) I started saying I was born in 1984 to make myself feel better. That thankfully decreased to every 2-3 hours after the rate started going up. Lucky me.
* The drugs they were dealing me there started to make me sick so I was extremely nauseated for days - actually JUST feeling more normal as of today...6 days later. ICK! I can stand pain. I can't stand feeling like I'm going puke all the time. I've been on Tylenol since Friday. You can keep your Hydrocodone, Darvocet, and all your other feel good stuff, people. If anyone wants to purchase an unopened bottle of the Hydro....give me a jingle.
* The sweet spots were seeing my parents every day, bugging the tar out of my dad and going to visit little Kelsey every day in her room and seeing her jam through her recovery! (That champ got out of the hospital just a day after me! The soonest ever for a transplant patient.)
* Sleep and rest do not occur in hospitals. The best sleep after surgery came when we got back to the apartment from the hospital. Sweet sweet sleep!
* Kelsey's new kidney was expected to make her abdomen protrude a little bit until she gets bigger but yet another miracle was that it was the perfect size for the space. Dr. Concepcion also shared that unlike the expectation that living donor kidneys last for around 20-years, with the super success of this transplant, it could possibly last her the rest of her life. Miracle #354. Please stay a miracle.
Okay. This has gone on long enough for one single post. Sorry. It has been a whole week of memories I've been trying to strip from my brain. Just wait 'til the poo post!!
Anyway, (**clearing of throat**) to conclude this evening, here is some medical jargon I never knew until this whole escapade:
"Creatinine is a chemical waste product in the blood that passes through the kidneys to be filtered and eliminated in urine. The chemical waste is a by-product of normal muscle contractions. Creatinine is made from creatine, a supplier of energy to the muscle.
Women usually have lower creatinine levels compared to men, because women have less muscle tissue. Among adults without kidney disease, men have approximately 0.6 to 1.2 milligrams/deciliters (mg/dL) of creatinine, whereas women have between 0.5 to 1.1 mg/dL of creatinine."
Molly and I have been discussing Kelsey's creatinine levels for the last 18 months - the ebbs and flows - ups and downs (there are obviously many other levels they track but I'm simple-minded and can only remember one number at a time).....her levels have been over 3.5 and climbing throughout this process and at the time of surgery I believe they were around a 4.5. Her kidneys were done giving everything they could give and the doctors commented how perfect timing this truly was. She wouldn't have lasted much longer without dialysis, which they didn't want to start her on as that decreases the success rate of a transplant. As of yesterday when she was sprung from the joint, her level was a 0.8. Every time I hear her new number it makes me cry.
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