50 Days from Transplant
I know I have been pretty absent the last few weeks as I was healing from the transplant surgery. Between taking care of the dog, fatigue, cooking, cleaning, and going to my UMC Transplant office for clinic and labs, I haven’t had enough time to do anything creative. Besides my creativity was subsumed into healing.
All the things I used to do and took for granted have been much harder to do. For instance, there was a stint in my bladder and it made it hard to bend over. I had to use my knees just to get do things like load the dishwasher.
I wasn’t in much pain, but I would get twinges if I rolled on my side. Plus I wake up every two hours to pee. That has been the most disconcerting, but it means my kidneys are working.
I’ve had some symptoms with the prednisone as in it makes me either lethargic or crazy or both. I am down to 5 mg., but I will talk to the doctor about lowering it again at 90 days. The doctor was talking about lowering it, but he hissed behind his teeth so I knew that he was unsure about lowering it so early. I made a deal with him that I will revisit the prednisone when 90 days was over. I want to be off of it.
So far the kidney and I are getting along fine.
I checked my schedule and in ten days I can go to the grocery store when very few people are there. That would make a nice excursion.
What I’ve liked so far is meeting others who have new kidneys. I’m soon to be an old hat at this btw. I met Denise, who had a kidney transplant the same day. There were four of us who got kidneys on Oct 11th and 12th because there was an unexpected death.
My kidney came from a woman who died during a heart procedure. Her artery burst. She was in her early 50s. I can only be grateful to her for her kidney. She saved two lives.
Last week Monday, my stint was taken out. I was surprised at how long the stint was. I didn’t think I had that much room in my abdomen. Wednesday before Thanksgiving, the Azura surgery center took out my PD catheter. It was more painful getting it taken out then put in. So on Thanksgiving I was icing my abdomen with my feet up most of the day. It is still a little swollen and still gives me pain.
One of the nurses at the UMC Transplant Office told me that it takes several weeks and sometimes months for the internal healing. I’m hoping I do much better than that.
As a recap, I’m at 50 days after the transplant. I am so grateful for the woman who gave me the kidney. I hope I can start creating again. Thanks for being so patient with me.