Well, I haven't written in a long time, and I'm about to tell you all why. This might be a bit long, so I'm going to try really hard not to bore you all.
October 11th at about 6:30 in the morning, I got the phone call that I was a back up for a kidney transplant, and that they would call me back in 6-8 hours and let me know what was going on. The kidney was all the way in California and I live in Pennsylvania. 10 hours later they called me saying they were looking to make sure no one needed a dual transplant (which takes precedence over a single kidney transplant) and again, they would be calling me in a few hours to let me know what was going on. Around 10:30 that night, I got the phone call saying, "Can you be at the hospital sometime after midnight so we can do the rest of the crossmatch?" and off my mom and I went! The kidney was a match, and I went into surgery at 11:00 in the morning on October 12th for the kidney transplant.
I had another allergic reaction during surgery to another antibiotic. That is 4 antibiotics that I am deathly allergic to. After the surgery I was sent to ICU for a couple days with a tube down my throat, and I was wide awake and remember everything about the tube. It was absolutely horrible. I felt like I was choking the entire time it was in. They tried to knock me out with fentynal and propofol but it didn't work. I was completely awake. When they finally took the tube out, I was watched like a hawk for any sign of pneumonia. Thankfully my lungs cleared up very quick and I was able to get up and get out of bed rather quickly. After about 2 days in the ICU I was able to go to a regular "monitoring" ward. It was so much more comfortable.
As for the kidney, well...Its working, just very slowly. Apparently my kidney is very sleepy because it was outside of the body for almost the "expiration date". I like to joke around and say its got severe jet lag! I had a bunch of tests done to make sure my kidney is working. All the tests came back wonderful. My transplant surgeon came into my hospital room and said "I am fairly confident that you will start peeing like crazy very shortly" so that made me feel good. I am still doing dialysis strictly for fluid control because I'm not urinating as much as I should be yet. All of my labs have come back wonderful, so obviously my kidney is filtering like it should be.
Getting that call for the kidney was absolutely shocking. I have waited a little over 8 years. I was (and still am) considered a "rare match". My antibodies are at 100% and that is extremely hard to match. Thank my lucky stars I was matched to this kidney. We did a lot of pre procedures to hopefully keep my antibodies down and hopefully keep my antibodies from attacking my kidney and rejecting it. From the biopsy I had done, it showed my kidney was in "borderline rejection" which is the lowest form of rejection. Thankfully we figured out what was going on in the matter of minutes. My kidney is allergic to my stomach meds (Prilosec) and the antibiotics they had me on right after transplant to stop any UTI's I may get. We stopped those meds right away, and started IV prednisone and all is well now.
I wasn't in the hospital for very long, and I think its because I'm very close to the hospital should something go wrong, and I am an extremely compliant patient. I did end up back in the hospital about a week later, but that is a different blog post that I will get to sometime this week. I feel like I have basically spent my entire month of October in the hospital! I was released today from my second admittance.
I honestly never thought I would receive a cadaver kidney. The best chance for someone like me to get a kidney is through living donor. I have had many people tested who did match, but there was always the antibodies that just got in the way. This kidney that I received was almost a damn near perfect match, from a middle aged man, and he was perfectly healthy. I would love to meet and or converse with my donors family, however that is up to them to contact me. I don't know anything about them, other than they had to make a hasty, very difficult decision to stop his life support so they could donate his organs.
Sometimes this entire situation feels like a dream. Is this real? Did I really get a kidney transplant? Am I really urinating after 8 years of not needing to pee? Will I be able to stop dialysis completely soon? Man, I hope so. I hope my kidney wakes up soon, so I can stop dialysis and do what I want to do. I want to get my GED and train to be a pediatric phlebotomist. I was basically forced to drop out of highschool when I started dialysis. I had both kidneys removed, and my first year of dialysis was absolutely horrible. I was so weak, I could hardly even sit up in bed without help. I even tried cyber school and I was just so exhausted I couldn't do it. Hopefully this kidney gives me a new lease on life, and I'll be able to start living my life. I have a wedding to plan too! How nice it would be to plan a wedding and get married not on dialysis!
Anyway, I hope I didn't bore you all with this blog post! I just wanted to explain why I haven't written and what has been going on. Please send all of your positive thoughts and good vibes my way so my kidney wakes up and starts urinating like crazy!
Thanks for reading!
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