Hi there! Sorry it has taken so long for me to get on here and post an update. I'm apologizing now for this lengthy post but want to get you up to speed on how things went and how I'm doing.
I am now a week and a half post-donation and I feel pretty good. I felt really good a few days ago and then yesterday noticed some tenderness on my stomach between my incisions....I am wondering if that is a normal part of the healing process (maybe the muscles are healing??). My main incision runs across my bikini line and then I have smaller incisions on my belly button, above my belly button, and on the left side of my stomach. Where I am feeling the tenderness is between the belly button and my main incision. It is tender to the touch whereas I don't have nearly as much tenderness right around the smaller incisions. Has anyone else noticed this? My concern is mainly because I didn't notice it a couple days ago, although I had paper tape near the main incision and the drain and so I just may not have actually touched my stomach until yesterday when the tape was gone.
I'll give some background information before I tell about my surgery since I don't post here much and most of you don't know me. I have a friend that has PKD. When she told me that her doctor said she was going to need to get proactive about finding a donor, I offered to get tested. That was the beginning of 2010. I started researching (and found this great website!) and quickly realized that this probably wasn't going to work since my blood type is AB+. I mentioned that to her one day at church and she said she was also AB. I remember feeling so good-as if that was confirmation that I was doing the right thing. So I continued with my research and was so excited to possibly help her out. About 6 months later she told me she had bad news....she found out her blood type was actually B+ so I wouldn't be able to donate to her. I was so bummed, but offered to join a paired exchange if it came to that. She was very grateful that I was so willing to help her. In my impatience, I started looking on the message board here where people post if they need/want a kidney and decided to search "AB". My friend was fine with me trying to help someone else-she is trying to hang on to her kidneys for as long as she can! I contacted a man that I found on the message board in July 2010, and the rest is history as we ended up being a good match!
The whole process of me and my mom traveling to Baltimore (we're in TX) through us coming home was great! We got there the Thursday before my donation because I had an anesthesia appt on Friday morning. On Friday afternoon we got groceries and had a nice visit with Sherri (many thanks for your support-you're absolutely wonderful!). Saturday was spent exploring the city a bit and then my sister arrived that night. We met my recipient and his wife Sunday morning and spent a while just chatting and getting to know each other. Prior to this, only I had met my recipient (and none of us had met each others' family members). Then my mom, sister, and I went to the Inner Harbor for the day. We got up early Monday morning and arrived at the hospital shortly before my 5:30 a.m. arrival time. We were "herded" into a waiting room that filled up with about 5-6 patients and their family members (one of which was my recipient and his wife). Not sure what the other patients were there for, but we made nervous small talk until we were taken into the pre-surgical area to prepare. Our family members waited in the waiting room until we had our IV's in. They put me and my recipient in beds next to each other and then it looked like they spaced everyone else out a little more; it was a fairly long room with beds separated with those curtains that always seem to gap.....
My recipient and I made small talk as we prepared and waited for various hospital staff to ask us questions/put our IV's in/give us injections of anti-clotting drugs/etc. My surgeon came in and asked if I had last minute questions. I didn't, but gave him my one request....I took a disposable camera with me and wanted pictures if possible. He agreed and so my mom gave the camera to someone on my surgical team. Anesthesia came in and explained what would happen step by step and then I was wisked off to the operating room. (My recipient had to wait another 45 minutes or so before he was taken off.) We had to maneuvor an obstacle course and finally arrived in the OR. I was very surprised at how it looked because I was expecting something like Grey's Anatomy....I told them that it didn't look anything like on Grey's Anatomy and the anesthesia nurse joked that they weren't as pretty as the actors. They made me get off the stretcher and hop up onto the surgical table which was a bit odd. Then they injected something to make me relax and the next thing I remember is being wheeled down a hall in quite a bit of pain after surgery. The voices were pretty watery sounding but my mom was there telling me we were passing my recipient's wife (I feel like she was crying when she saw me, but can't be sure). I told the nurses that were moving me to my room I'd heard that I would hate them for moving me from that bed to the bed in my room. They laughed....and then made me move myself! I had to "crab walk" from the stretcher to bed which was not fun! My sister wanted the nurse to take pictures of me with my mom and sister and they kept asking me to smile. I could hear them laughing at me (my smile was probably a bit ridiculous looking at that point). What I remember most was how dry my mouth was! They gave me a green sponge on a stick (I thought it was a lollipop at first) that they dunked in a cup of water and it felt so good to have that little bit of liquid to swab my mouth. I also remember being so nauseas. They gave me something for that, and had to give it to me repeatedly over the next 24 hours or so. Thankfully, I never got sick and they were able to keep the nausea under control. I slept through much of the first day but my mom and sister told me that the recipient kept asking how I was doing. They told me the kidney turned pink but that his doctors had to do an ultrasound to see which kidney was producing urine (the old ones or his new one). That disappointed me a bit because I was praying that the new kidney would make urine on the table. However, they said he was doing good.
The next day I got up to walk---ow! But I did feel better after walking. Got to have the catheter out--great---except then I had to get up to go to the bathroom which was quite painful. It got better though and each time I walked it hurt less and less. There were times that I'd be so stiff from laying in bed but other times where it wasn't too bad. I ended up staying in the hospital from Monday-Friday; they had originally thought I'd be discharged Wed. The transition from the morphine pump to oral pain meds was a little difficult. The first pill they gave me made me nauseas and so we had to try a different one. I was quite loopy on Wed from the meds. By Friday I felt pretty good. I got to visit with my recipient several times which was really nice and made the pain I went through all worth it! It was great to see him and hear how good he felt. He kept saying how warm he felt again. Because his kidneys weren't working, he was always cold. He said that if it was cooler than 60 degrees he basically had to wear a scarf. He had also been really pale before surgery, and afterwards he had more color.
My recipient was supposed to be discharged on Friday too but they had some problems with his blood pressure and by the time they got that worked out, it was too late to discharge. Apparently they don't discharge on Sat and Sun in his unit so he was "stuck" in the hospital until Monday (a few days ago). That frustrated him but I told him it would give him a couple more days to heal before heading home which can never be a bad thing.
So we're now both at home and seem to be doing well. It has been an amazing experience and I'm so glad to have been a part of it. My recipient and his family are such great people and I know this gift is going to change their lives! Even though it was a long journey that tried my patience, it is worth it in the end. I'd never had surgery before so I had no clue what to expect. It was quite painful and nothing like I imagined, but I would do it all over again! I am praying that we both continue to make complete recoveries.
Topic: Update for jstx (Jocelyn) (Read 11532 times)