Thanks very much for your best wishes and concerns.
I am starting to feel fighting fit, but the body is still dragging along a little.
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| Og relaxing while waiting to be taken home after his kidney transplant [Photograph: Toosh] |
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| Og out side his room at St Vincent’s [Photograph: Toosh] |
It took one hour to get home in which I finally managed to contact Somerled. Why does the mobile phone fail just when you really need it?
SMS and keep driving. Finally the message comes back from Somerled that he will meet me at home and drive me to St Vincent’s Hospital in Melbourne.
Quickly grab the bare necessities, a quick email to friends and family then back on the road to Melbourne.
Heavy traffic is slowing us down all the way and we receive a phone call half way wondering where we are and that everything is ready at St Vincent’s.
Heavy traffic through the city, we are running really late.
At the hospital we even get lost trying to find the right ward, but we finally arrive and they start prepping up around 7pm, 5 hours after the first phone call.
11:40pm, coming to in Intensive Care, I am surprised it is over already, but I feel good with very little pain.
The kidney I had just received had come from a 64 year old male, that’s all I would know. Who was this person who’s generous family had given me this gift? The names John and Eric kept coming into my head. The latter was more significant as I was to find out.
It all gets a bit blurry but it was good to see Somerled come in with Merlin around midnight. Doctors are hovering around, but seem quite relaxed and confident.
Over the next few days I caused a bit of anxiety as my heart condition makes them hesitant to throw me in at the deep end with loading on fluid to get the kidney going.
So, it’s steady as we go Mr Christian.
Some dialysis the next day to take off excess fluid and allow my body to adjust to the surgery and another night in Intensive Care.
Stand and walk, amazingly painless despite the horror stories I have had from other kidney recipients about the pain of stretching the wound.
Then, it’s up to the ward so the real business of activating the kidney can continue. Still a bit of anxiety from doctors but over the next 2 days a trickle of urine starts to flow through the catheter and confidence is rising.
Now remember I have not really had a real sleep so the brain is somewhere else. I am starting to realize there is a place between being awake and asleep. During the day my eyes are open but I am not there. During the night my eye’s are closed, but I am not asleep. It’s almost as though I am tripping. Add boredom and throw in some Morphine and a few other drugs into the cocktail and I am in a another land. Quite scary at times. The nurses on the night shift were like guides; they had seen it all before, they understood.
Finally on the morning of day 4 the brain is back in my head. I feel safe; I know I am safe; it’s going to be OK, fluid (urine) is starting to come from the kidney at a regular rate which means I am over the danger period.
The transplant is looking like it will be a success.
Not immediately though. The process of bringing the kidney back to life, fully functioning will take many weeks yet, and the drugs and monitoring will vary.
Each day I get more comfortable and get more sleep.
I am moved from the single room with restricted access to a general ward.
The tests are now coming hard and fast. A hot meal arrives only for me to be thrown into a wheel chair for a scan and return 2½ hours later to a still waiting now cold dinner. The catheter is out and while waiting for the scan I am rushed to a private bathroom for my first solo pee. After 7 years on dialysis and passing no urine my bladder just couldn’t hold out!
I am now showering myself etc and getting more comfortable and confident. There is even talk about me "going home".
I find I am in a room with Jason, another transplantee, who has been there for 6 weeks with minor complications.
He is truly an amazing guy. There is something special about him and I notice an article from The Age on the wall. It seems to be written by a journo/researcher about her brother Jason’s journey through renal failure and dialysis. Could this be our Jason, the one in the next bed?
But the real thrust behind the article is the suffering caused by the fact that even though we are world leaders in recycling with our rubbish, we are still have the lowest organ donor rate in the world! The concept of "presumed consent", already being practiced in Spain and being introduced after much campaigning in Britain is explained and that we need to introduce it here and try and change some of our attitudes. It is not taking away a family’s right to say no, but about making it less complicated to say yes. Anyway, I have put a link into the article and will send a copy of it separately so please read it and support it.
Creatinine is still high so it becomes a waiting game for it to come down so I can go home. This starts to happen but the urea is still up. It’s around day 8 or 9.
Finally things settle and I am going home tomorrow, Good Friday evening, 9 full days after the transplant.
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| Merlin arrives to come home to stay with me for a week [Photograph: Toosh] |
Thanks to the transplant and renal team at St Vincent’s, especially surgeons David Francis and Mark Westcott, anaesthetist Greg & Alex, Doctors Karen Dwyer, Dash & David Goodman, and nurses Mary, Kim, Nessy and too many others to name.
Thanks also goes to the crew at Geelong who keep me going for 7 years on dialysis and got me ready for the day I got the call, and who have been monitoring me since I got home.
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| Toosh picking me up from St Vincent’s after the transplant [Photograph: Merlin] |
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| Ultra Sound of Eric the Kidney 2008 [Image: St Vincent’s Hospital Melbourne] |
POSTSCRIPT:
..Unfortunately Eric is not longer with me.June 2009
It was hard journey which I am still recovering from.
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