Transplant advice please

[Slywalker]

Greetings everyone - I have been a lurker for some time here at Ihatedialysis.com.  I've been a member for some time but actually I lurk and have gained a lot of knowledge, first about dialsysis, home dialysis and now I need transplant information.  My kidneys failed, mostly because I have rotten DNA.  No, I am not diabetic, nor do I have cystic... disease.  I do have high blood pressure but docs inform me it was my small kidneys that was caused the high blood pressure (they think my kidneys stopped growing at around age 13) (but that is not the cause of my kidney failure).  Kidney failure is pretty much rampant in my mother's side of the family, which included my mother, aunts and now some cousins.  So for the last 8 years I've had failing kidneys and in February they really went bottom-up.  I first started hemodialysis until a cather for PD dialysis could be correctly inserted.  Now I'm on the night cycler PD dialysis which really gave me my life back.  I'm feeling way better than I have for a couple of years. 

But, now the new information that I need.

I have a living donor who has finally been cleared to donate a kidney.  We have a date!!!  Yes--- July 18 we are scheduled for our surgery. 

Some of the information I have garnered from the transplant stories here has been great.  But what I need to know is the recovery time to return to work.  I work full time - and have right along.  I need to give my employer some rough dates for how long I'll be out recouperating from this surgery.  Some of the stories here would lead me to believe the recovery time may be more lengthy than I anticipated.

Thanks in advance for any information you can provide me.  Oh, any while I've read a bit about the donor's recovery time - if you have info on that I would appreciate it too.  My donor also works full time.

Thank you all.

Sandyb





EDITED: Moved to the proper section, introduce yourself - Sluff/ Admin

[Roxy]

Hey! Glad to hear you have a date! that's awesome news! I just had my transplant on May 7th and my mom was the donor. She is already back at work. She only works a couple hours a day though and then works from home. They don't really want you doing too much too soon. My doctor's don't want me working for a couple of months. It also depends on what type of work you do. Like if you are around a lot of people (germs, etc), heavy lifting ( weight restrictions on what you can lift), stuff like that. So depending on your job, it might take a little longer or a little shorter amount of time for you to get back to work. Your transplant team should be able to also help with when they feel you are ok to go to work. Also, everybody's recovery time is different. Some people don't feel all that well in the beginning and sometimes takes a month or so until you feel like being up and about. You really do want to be careful after the transplant. It's better to take a little extra time and make sure you're perfectly well, than to rush back to work and risk something. Anyway just my 
Hope that helped!

[Joe Paul]

Welcome Slywalker, good to have you aboard.

[Sluff]

Sandyb welcome to IHD,( That rhymed)

I moved your thread here to the introduce yourself section so all our members could get to know who you are. Go ahead and start another post under transplants when you get the chance.

I hope you enjoy the site as much as hundreds of others do. Welcome it's great to see you here.


Sluff/ Admin

[ahamner]

I had my transplant on December 25 and I went back to work on January 18th.  I have a desk type job and I am not around many people at work. Thus there was little chance of my damaging the new kidney or getting sick by being exposed to illnesses.  I agree with Roxy it depends on your job and how you feel.  Talk to your transplant coordinator for specific information for your situation.

A kidney transplant is a wonderful thing that is very hard to come by; so do your best to preserve your new kidney!

Good luck!

[lola]

When my husband had his first transplant he was only off for two weeks but everybody is diffrent. I think alot has to do with your health b-4 and what you do.

[keefer51]

I had my transplant on january 22 1992. I was only born with one kidney that failed during a operation to have my son. My brother was a perfect match 6 out of 6. We could have had the transplant earlier but the powers to be like to play games and make you suffer so you really want the new kidney. They wanted me to go back to work in April. But my exwife was driving me crazy so i went back in march. The best thing to do is not get paranoid about your new kidney. Keep it in the back of your mind. You will feel so good after the transplant that you want to go back to work before they discharge you. Try and do things you couldn't do with the time off. I went fishing. Enjoy your new kidney and if you know who gave it to you take them out to dinner on your anniversery.

[livecam]

It was recommended that I take 3 months off work so that is what I did.  For sure I was feeling better long before that and wanted to go back but why rush it?  While you are recovering your body has to adjust to the new meds it is getting and to having good renal function again after some time on dialysis.

I'm also diabetic so the new kidney and the meds affected that too and for the worse.  I began injecting insulin shortly after the transplant and had that to get accustomed to also.

You might want to plan on being excused for a certain period of time with the understanding that you could go back earlier if it is medically approved.  That way you are approved for that amount of time but you could return sooner if you wanted to.

[George Jung]

Welcome.

I can't help feeling a bit troubled about your concern for what to tell your workplace to expect for a recovery time.  I completely understand and respect your position as an employee but we are talking about a LIFE sustaining treatment.  I truly hope I am not misunderstood but the last thing on my mind, if I were receiving a kidney, would be how long do I have to be out of work.  It is not my intention to criticize and possibly I am misunderstanding what I have read but please take you time with recovery, and more than that, enjoy the wonderful wonderful gift you are about to receive.  I would give my employer an exaggerated worse case scenario for recovery time, something like 4-6 months, and have some fun with the extra time and then return to work.  Remember that a transplant is a treatment and you never know how long it will last.  Best of luck to you and your donor, treat yourself to some good times before settling back into your routine.

[st789]

Self employee would be perfect for kidney transplant patients

[Slywalker]

Thanks everyone for your speedy replies and thoughtful input. 

Some have mentioned that I should get input from my medical team - and yes I have done that but they tell me two months to a year.  Well, a year is a long time to recovery from this type of surgery- or so I thought which is why I needed some real life stories. 

I'm 54, with pretty good health (well kidney failure might not be considered "pretty good"), as I mentioned I work full time.  I am a business manager.

I do feel that I should give my employer a timeline as I would expect one of my own employees to be able to give me some kind of  timeline for major surgery.  All I want to do is to give a reasonable timeline and not inflate it more than necessary.   My work is important to me - but so is my health.  And before I get beat up on because I want to return to work as soon as possible, please let me mention that I am well aware of the importance of taking care of me and my kidney.  I have lost my mother to this disease - so I know how important this is. 
My donor is a dear dear friend - and yes, we will celebrate every single anniversary that I get. 

Again, thank you everyone for the warm welcome and the information.  It is invaluable to me.

Sandyb 

[Sara]

I think it's perfectly reasonable to want to give your work a timeframe for when you'll return, as long as you don't hurry yourself back before you're ready.  Joe's trying to be very upfront with his employer since they have pretty much bent over backwards to help him. 

[Laurie]

  Slywalker, glad you found this site.
When I went through my transplant evaluation I was told to expect to be off work for at least 3 months.
Good luck with your transplant 

[kidney4traci]

Welcome!  This can be a great site for info.  Good luck with the transplant!! 

[st789]

Yes, ideally a desk job would be fit well with kidney transplant patients.  Also, agree on the part about exposing to too many people.  I myself consider switching to a similar type of job.

[kitkatz]

     Welcome to the IHateDialysis.com site! You will find a lot of helpful information here, as well as a lot of information of all types of dialysis.
Our administrators are Goofynina and Sluff. The moderators are Bajanne2000, Kitkatz (ME), and OKarol.  We are here to assist you in any way if you need help on the site. 
Let me give you a brief overview of the site.
There are lots of interesting discussions in the off topic area: http://ihatedialysis.com/forum/index.php?board=5.0.
There is even a fiction story being written by our members in this area: http://ihatedialysis.com/forum/index.php?board=17.0
Home dialysis discussions are in this topic: http://ihatedialysis.com/forum/index.php?board=25.0
The area that generates a lot of discussion about dialysis is the general discussion topics:
http://ihatedialysis.com/forum/index.php?board=2.0
This area of the forum is where the meat and potatoes of the dialysis world are discussed by the members. 
Feel free to post anything you want to discuss or if you have a question.
There is also a search box at the top of the boards to help you in finding topics of interest or answers to your questions.  You can refine your search, too.

I hope this short tour has helped you become better acquainted with IHateDialysis.com.



Kitkatz,moderator

[Rerun]

Welcome to HID.  Just remember that everyone is different and every case is different.  If all goes well you could be back to work in six weeks but I would tell them 8 weeks so you could surprise them and look like a real "go-getter". 

If things go bad ......well we won't go there.  Best of Luck on July 18!!

[okarol]

Welcome Slywalker!
Our daughter Jenna wasn't employed but felt pretty good at about 6 weeks post op (she is 21 years old.) Her donor went back to work 2 weeks after the transplant (but she is a tri-athlete, had been training for a marathon, so probably not typical.) Your donor can check out www.livingdonorsonline.org - this question comes up often and there are many donors there with varying experience.
Best of luck!
Karol


okarol/moderator

[Hawkeye]

Hello and 

[kelliOR]

Welcome Slywalker,

Congratulations on having a living donor!  Looking forward to seeing your posts in the transplant section  !

Kelli

[Wattle]

 

[okarol]

  Bumping IS good Slywalker! 

[Slywalker]

Okarol - you are too cool.         And I read all the posts again and the overwhelming welcome again brought tears to my eyes.

Oh - I see Sluff has been busy adding more smiley people!!! 

Sandyb

   (stilled addicted to this cool bunny)

[willieandwinnie]

Slywalker, I don't know how in the world I missed so many introductions. I'm sorry, but my Big  means the same. 

[twirl]

just read your post on the date with the transplant
how did things go
please let me know
twirl