Genevieve Bookwalter: Kidney transplant was a success

Genevieve Bookwalter: Kidney transplant was a success

Genevieve Bookwalter - Sentinel staff writer
Article Launched: 04/13/2008 02:00:53 AM PDT

The night before my kidney transplant last December was my best night of sleep in almost a year.

After all, I didn't have much to lose. No matter what happened, I reasoned, I wasn't going to feel much worse than I already did.

Not so for my sister, who was about to give me her kidney, or my mom, who was about to watch both of her daughters be wheeled off to surgery just hours apart. They were up most of the night.

It's still overwhelming to think about the whole thing.

I was diagnosed with IgA Nephropathy in 2004. In less than four years, the disease ravaged my kidneys to the point where I would need dialysis -- where my blood would be sucked out, cleaned by a machine and pumped back into my body -- or a transplant.

After six months of what seemed like an endless battery of tests, my sister [who doesn't like her name in the paper] turned out to be a perfect match. The surgery was Dec. 18.

Receiving her kidney was one of the most amazing events of my life.

There are the obvious reasons, of course -- I don't sit in my car when I get home from work anymore, summoning the energy to go inside. My feet, which were painfully swollen for almost a year before the surgery, once again fit into my shoes. I get off work and look forward to running hills, instead of struggling to travel a mile without stopping.

But what I couldn't believe was how good I felt the day after surgery. Granted, I was so
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sore that I could barely walk down the hall to my sister's room at UC San Francisco Medical Center. But the chronic exhaustion was gone. My body relaxed. The fog had cleared out of my head. I was no longer fighting to get through the day; I was healing.

Now, almost four months later, I feel better than I have in almost five years, when my symptoms of kidney disease began.

I have favorite memories from the whole experience, like my boyfriend throwing pillows on the floor and sleeping next to me after I got out of surgery about midnight; watching out my window as the sun rose over the San Francisco hills; and cheering as my sister slowly walked from her hospital room to mine.

Since I returned to the Sentinel last month, I've been flattered by how many people have called and written to ask how the surgery went.

Neither my sister nor I is a very sappy person, and she hates when I gush over how grateful I am that she gave me my life back. Instead, she said, just tell her what I can do now that I couldn't do before.

Thursday morning I called and thanked her for letting me go backpacking in Big Sur this weekend.

I couldn't do it without her.

Contact G. Bookwalter at 706-3286 or gbookwalter@santacruzsentinel.com.

http://www.mercurynews.com/centralcoast/ci_8909972