Transplant went well yesterday!

[AtlantaPatient]

My beautiful sister in law Katie donated a kidney to me tues morning and we are both doing well so far.     She is recovering about 4 roooms down the hall and I'm planning to walk down there today to give her another hug.

My doctors were very pleased with how it went. The urine is flowing like wine. My creatine dropped from about 10.8 to 8 within about 5 hours of getting out of surgery and they'll do another lab in a couple of hours.  I have an incision about 6" long, diaganol, just below my belt line.  It's painful, but manageable with the pain pump. If I'm just laying here and not stretching around, it's just like a dull ache. Katie was in a little more pain yesterday but able to post on facebook, talk on the phone, etc.

I haven't slept much, thus why I'm posting at 4 a.m.  Some of it is due to the pain, but they are also checking my vitals every hour, blood sugar about every 2 hours, and I have some inflatable contraptions on my lower legs that inflate and deflate constantly to keep blood flow and avoid clots.  And the fluid pump makes a constant noise.  It's too painful to roll and stay on my side and I rarely sleep on my back so that doesn't help either. But I feel pretty good and it's sinking it that it finally took place!

Anyway, just wanted to pass on the good news and thank everyone hear again for all the information and support! I read a lot more than I posted - I'm not typically superstitious, but I just felt like if I talked about a transplant myself it was not going to happen - weird.

Lastly, a local Atlanta new station 11 Alive is doing a special this week about paired donation as I think they have 3 couples donating to each other starting today.  If you don't live locally, you should be able to see the preview and the stories on www.11alive.com.  My wife met one of the recipients yesterday. There was a potential snag on surgery day and think they had to push it back a day.

[Chris]

 

[willowtreewren]

Awesome!!!!

Sorry you are having so much pain. My husband was lucky with that. He was walking a mile+ two days after surgery. His pain was mostly from the gas. Walking helped that.

Aleta

[monrein]

 

[Brightsky69]

    Great news!!

[Sax-O-Trix]

Congartulations!!!  You will feel even better when you home...  I am 22 days out and never want to be an in-patient again, lol. 

[carol1987]

  wonderful!!!

[okarol]

Great to hear the news! (I am a little superstitious that way too.) 
I think you're the first IHD member to get a transplant in April!
I added you to the list http://ihatedialysis.com/forum/index.php?topic=4927.0
Best wishes for a speedy recovery for you and Katie - LIVING DONORS ROCK!
 

[jbeany]

 

[Jie]

Congratulation! It may be hard to sleep due to steroid too.

[Cordelia]

Congrats! I'm so excited and happy for you! I hope things continue to progress well!

[AtlantaPatient]

Thanks to everyone for sharing my joy in this news. Quick update: Katie is off the morphine and switched to percocet. She has walked around some and feeling better if not great yet.  She skyped with her children today also - she lives in Illinois so in addition to the great gift she has given me, is away from her family for about 2 1/2 weeks. 

As for me, creatinine down to 5.7 as of this morning. Switched from pain pump to percocet.  Have gotten up twice to do some walking - they have a dry erase board in the hallway with patient's name and "laps completed." Now that I've seen that, It's On!  Walking actually did help me feel better afterwards, but no way I could have walked a mile today; that's impressive.  I generally feel pretty good and doctors are happy with the progress.  Hoping to get the catheter out tomorrow and take a shower , more walking, and go home on Friday. When I'm on my home computer I'll post a pic of the wonderful Katie. 

The irony of the day so far: being told I'll be on phosphorus supplements when I'm home initially. All that time avoiding yogurt, cheese, milk, bananas, and beer, and now I won't get enough of the stuff.  I just had to laugh.

Cheers.

[Brightsky69]

I totally missed cheese too...with the transplant I ate it 24/7. Now I am kinda sick of it.....but not really.

[RightSide]

AtlantaPatient,

that's fantastic!  I'm amazed you can surf the Internet and post here--I was so zonked from the pain meds that I just slept through most of the first two days post-op!

Based on my own experience, I do have two pieces of advice: 

If anyone is coming to visit you, ask them to bring you some earplugs and eye shades.  That will block out the noise and light and help you sleep.  (I brought those with me when I was admitted to the hospital, and they sure helped.)

Ask your nurses to get you plenty of prune juice (and maybe vegetable juice) and some laxatives too.  All those pain meds slowed down my bowel and gave me a bad case of constipation for nearly a week--which hurt as bad as the surgery. And with abdominal surgery, you don't want to be straining on the toilet anyway.

[kellyt]

    Congratluations!!!!

[galvo]

Great to hear.

[Ang]

congrats

those contraptions on your legs are there to keep the blood flowing around cause your spending most of your day in bed,when you get mobile they'll give you the stockings

[AtlantaPatient]

Creatinine down to 2.99 this morning. Go kidney go!
Slept much better and getting catheter out today. More walking around and home tomorrow.  My donor is going home today!

[Poppylicious]

This is fantastic news!  Congratulations!  And huzzah! for Katie!

 

[billybags]

That is brilliant, you take care.

[AtlantaPatient]

I came home from the hospital today. Still pretty sore around the incision when getting up or sitting down or walking, but no problem when sitting or laying down.  Despite the soreness, I really feel like my general energy level is starting to exceed what I felt like pre-transplant. It will be easier to assess in another week or two I imagine.

I tried to transition from percocet to just tylenol this morning and it wasn't enough, so still taking 1 percocet every 4-5 hours for now.  Creatinine was down to 2.59 this morning.  It's great to be home with my wife and baby and start getting into a groove of taking my meds and hopefully getting stronger each day.  For the first 4 weeks, I'll be going back every Monday for labs, and every thursday for in-clinic visits.  I can't wait to have the dialysis clinic come pick up the machine and supplies I have left over.

[carol1987]

  wonderful!!!  i wish you all good things!!!