A plump,sulk-free orientated kidney!

Sunflower

Today we went for our pre-operation assessment. Again what an excellent experience...informative,collaborative and very human! Our assessment sister was excellent and I just loved  some of her very personable language around the kidney. For instance she was explaining the process for Martyn in that pre op he'll have a drip up to hydrate the kidney for transplant, as I'll be needing a nice plump kidney as opposed to a dry [dehydrated] one. She also was talking about the benefits of having a live donor kidney in that because the kidney is only out of the body and preserved on ice for about an hour whist they prepare me for transplant, as opposed to a kidney that has come from the donor list which may have been on ice in transit for several hours.....then Martyn's live kidney is less likely to 'sulk' and take its time to settle in. 

She also explained about why it takes time sometimes for a new kidney to settle and you can really understand why if your empathic with it.From its pont of view there it is sitting quite happily in Marts healthy ,fit body doing what kidneys do and the next moment some surgeon whips it out [ well not really whip as it takes great care , up to four hours to remove a kidney so its near perfect]. It then gets put on ice for an hour and then gets transplanted into my less than perfect body with two not so perfect polycystic kidneys as its neighbours. I'd bloody sulk too if that was my experience! It must be like when we took our kids as toddlers away to a hot country, we'd leave cold rainy Britain  and McDonald's, they'd sleep and the next moment they'd wake up in a hot climate and have no McDonald's.....how do you get a toddler to understand that?

So what I want for Christmas is a non sulking, plump and orientated kidney. Which I'm sure I'll be getting in January all being well.

Also we will be discussing whose going to babysit me whilst Marts in surgery for four hours and I'm waiting to go down to theatre to receive his kidney.My first thought was the kids but I realise how hard that could be for them waiting for both parents to come out of surgery, so guess there's consultations to be had. Its a old habit as a parent of trying to decide what will be best for them and really I need to be asking them. Also we need to prepare them to what will greet them physically when we come out of surgery...more technical for me as the recipient as for Mart as the donor. So for me I'll have a line[ tube] stitched into my neck which will go to my heart to monitor fluid pressure in the big arteries, a cannula in my arm for the administration of drugs, pain killers and anti rejection drugs....and wait for it girls...a catheter for five days. This is to protect the new join in my urethra to the new kidney as apparently a new kidney will pump out lots of fluid at pressure. They also keep me very hydrated as I think it helps prevent clotting in the kidney. How sexy will I be? But I don't care I'm just so grateful and feeling so blessed that Marts donating his kidney. Apparently the amount of live donors is rising..you do only need one kidney. Apparently lots of people only have one anyway they just don't know they have.

So on the whole a great day.......the information was both useful and palatable.

 Some oldish pictures of our amazing children...when transplant seemed a hundred miles away......