I donated a kidney one month ago as of yesterday. I donated to an anonymous recipient and an anonymous donor donated to my best friend's brother. My recovery has been good as has my friend's brother. Not sure about my recipient because there is a 6 month cooling off period before I can contact her but my understanding is that the surgery was a success. At any rate, I have found myself turning to this forum quite a bit because there simply isn't sufficient data available online otherwise. As much as my friends and family love me and want to be there for me, there is something to be said about connecting with people that have been there before themselves.
I'd love to hear from people that are recently recovered. My recovery has been a weird cycle. The first week was of course difficult for the obvious reasons but by the end of week 2 I was feeling great and thought to myself, there is NO way I will need to be out of work for the 6 weeks that I had requested. By the middle of week 3 though, I was SO grateful that I had decided to stay off because I started to feel really achy as the day progressed and I found that I fatigued easily. It was frustrating because I would wake up feeling great and thinking I was getting over the hump but then the fatigue and aches would find me later in the day. It's now almost week 5 and I still feel achy and I actually started to feel some sharp shooting pains this week followed by dull aches, though those are subsiding. I invested in an ab brace and I have found that it significantly reduces the pressure on my incision site.
I go back to work in one week so I'm interested to know suggestions from those recently recovered on how you transitioned back into work. I work in sales so I will be sitting quite a bit. I won't have to do any lifting at all for work. Just curious how you felt when you went back and best practices. Also, if anyone has suggestions on light exercises that I can do to start to tighten the muscles in my abdomen again to start to relieve some of the achy feelings I'm having.
Since my surgery I drink a TON of water...I try to get in at least a gallon of water a day and I limit my alcohol intake. Even with all of the water I am drinking, I still find myself waking up in the middle of the night sometimes feeling a dry mouth sensation. Has anyone else had this feeling?
Lastly, I have read a bunch of posts about the lack of follow-up and I have to say that I too have been incredibly disappointed in that. I find it odd that we go for a 2 week check-up and then don't see a doctor again for 6 months. I am personally setting an appointment with my pcp for next week just to check my blood pressure, etc and make sure that everything is ok before I go back to work. I realize my creatinine levels will still be high but i will feel better just seeing someone, esp considering that when I went to my follow up appt, they literally didn't check a thing (outside of blood pressure)...he asked me a couple of questions and then suggested that I could not only walk but start a light jog AT TWO WEEKS post-surgery. At two weeks I could barely walk a block...I can't fathom having started to run then. I'm still nervous about running 5 weeks in.
Anywho, any feedback would be awesome. Thanks in advance and congratulations to those that have already taken this journey and good luck to those beginning it. The minimal inconveniences that I feel post-surgery would not ever prevent me from having made this decision! It was truly the best thing I have ever done in my life and I would gladly do it all over again!