Surgery Day...

My husband Mark and I had to be at the hospital at 5 AM with my little red ticket.  I had to get up really early because you have to take a shower with some special soap before surgery!

When we checked in the lady remembered me and said "I am sure you will do great."  Those kinds of comments make a big difference.

We went up to the pre-op area, and the nurse asked Mark to wait in the lobby and then she would go get him later.  I told Mark that I wondered if he would have some company from Albert, the recipient.  Mark did not think so, but Albert and his crew showed up shortly after I went into the pre-op room.  Mark said they talked for a long time, and Albert left me a beautiful card that made me cry.  Mark had not heard the term "Muchisimas gracias" before that day!

While I was in pre-op the nurses did all the same stuff they always do and I kept on having to go to the bathroom while they were trying to do their job.  Even though I had done the bowel prep the afternoon before, it seemed to reactivate once I was at the hospital.  They also fill the donor up with fluids so that the kidneys are busy going into surgery and the doctors really do not want you to go to the bathroom too much before the surgery,  but there is not much they can do about it if you have to go.  The nurse and I joked that the I.V. bag was my baby because of the way I carried it!

Mark came back to pre-op with me as Albert was walking back for his pre-op.  I was glad to see Albert go by even though I was quickly developing the headache of my life.  I told Mark that I thought I was getting a migraine or something so he kept trying to shade and cover my eyes because a big light was shining right in them. We could not figure out which light switch was okay to turn off. 

Almost the whole time that Mark was in there the surgeon was sitting at the nurses station yelling at the people in the lab or somewhere in the hospital.  I know at one point he called one person at home and woke them up.  I was sort of like that dog in the old Farside cartoon that can only understand her name and a few other words...so all I could hear was ALTOBELLI blah blah blah CROSS MATCH TEST blah blah blah.  I kept telling Mark to be quiet so I could hear or better yet, go out there and find out what was going on!  It was a little unnerving.

When the surgeon came into pre-op, I asked him if everything was okay and he said it was and then I told him about my migraine and he said "As long as you don't vomit!"  Then he told me that when they went thru the CAT scan of my kidneys, they (the radiologist and surgeon) noticed that I had one kidney that was 2 centimeters bigger than the other one, so they were taking the smaller one and leaving the bigger one.  That meant that instead of taking the left kidney like they normally do, because it has longer veins and is easier to get to, they would take the right one.  Mark and I both asked if that was the best thing to do and the surgeon assured us that they have to leave the "better" kidney if there is one, to the donor.  He also mentioned that I have long veins on either side, so taking the right one is still going to work. 

Mark kissed me good-bye (lots of tears) and it was off to the operating room.  I actually remember being wheeled in there and the mask and going under, even though they gave me Versed in pre-op.  I also woke up for a second during the surgery (I have experienced anesthesia awareness before) and all I saw was the back of the anesthesioligist and heard the nurse say "Blinking! Blinking!"

The next thing I remember is being in post-op/recovery and feeling like I could not breathe.  I told the nurse that I could not breathe or see right and that I could hear a baby.  She finally admitted that there was a baby in there that someone brought for a visit! I was only in recovery about one hour and was wheeled to my room.  The person that wheeled me to my room had a Scottish accent and I asked him if he had a good Robert Burns day and he said "Today is Robert Burns Day!"  So I was a little confused.  Later I think I asked him if he had done his shot of haggis!

I had the worst bed.  It made so much noise every time you moved it up or down.  It was like nails on the chalkboard screeching--terrible.

The best thing that happened that afternoon was that the other surgeon for Albert came by and said that the kidney worked so well it was a record for all the urine it was putting out in the recovery room!  He said it was not sleepy at all and went right to work.  I was so happy to hear that.

Staying in the hospital is hard on everyone, not just the patient. It is almost impossible to sleep in there with all the alarms going off all night long on the I.V. pole, and the nurses are in and out constantly when you are trying to sleep and when you really need them to show up, it seems to take forever.

They always run right in when you have a visitor too, I noticed! ; )

About 1 AM I started thinking that my Foley catheter was vapor locked and called for the nurse, which involved lots of fiddling around, after he finally came (really nice nurse but..) then he says he will do an ultrasound on my bladder to see if it is full, and he cannot find my bladder with the ultrasound thing, so I asked him what would happend if I just stood up?  That solved the problem!  The catheter is one of the worst aspects of the surgery.  But once its gone, it's gone.

The other painful part is the gas the surgeons put in to extend the belly for the surgery: that gas is still in there and very painful after the surgery.  It just moves up, in my case, to the shoulders and back and it hurts like hell!

As far as the surgical site goes, it does not look too bad.  There are three little laporoscopic holes and then the incision that they use to actually take out the kidney, which is above the pubic bone, not around back where the kidney comes from.  That is the only true incision and it is probably 3 to 4 inches long. It looks ugly right now but I don't think it will end up causing much of a scar in the long run.  My belly is really swollen, so it is okay to call me Alottabelli this week, because I know it will go down.

I had so many well wishers in various ways. I thank you all for all of your kindness! It really does make a difference!

I spent one night and part of the next day in the hospital, but it was well worth it.