Holly officially is not able to blog today so it's my turn.
Holly had her native kidneys removed today. She went into surgery at 12:50 and she should be in recovery soon. The surgeon was pleased with the "boring" surgery.
Just to start catching everybody up, after her transplant Holly has been enjoying life and having a great summer. She has been gardening, with gloves and a big hat, mostly. (Skin cancer is now one of our threats, as immunosuppression makes you less able to fight that, too.) Grooming dogs, painting a new bedstead and doing other projects as well as work have kept her happily busy. The transplanted kidney issues resolved and she recovered from the surgical restrictions. As the summer progressed she acclimated to her medications and her new routine associated with this new life.
It has been the plan to remove the native kidneys as soon as Holly was recovered enough handle another surgery. Her native kidneys were enlarged by the cysts caused by the PKD. She was experiencing quite a bit of pain from them and they were affecting her appearance and causing other complications. We will have more details about the native kidneys as these posts continue.
My admiration and gratitude to Dr. Dunn and the transplant team at the University of Minnesota Medical center. Thanks to Cheryl for stopping by to pass the time this afternoon. Thanks to Bethel University and the ITS Help Desk team for picking up the slack while I'm gone to take care of Holly. My gratitude is not just for the events around this particular surgery but for the improvement in Holly's life since this spring.
I will have a few days here to go into more details.
Randy
--------Holly, later--------
I actually slept most of the night before the operation, thanks mainly to a double-headed rush to get things done at work and at home to prepare for weeks off. Plus, I think I'd been getting gradually more depressed as the weeks got closer. Delaying the operation due to a bad bladder infection and ER visit in late October didn't help much.
I went into this operation with a dread I've hardly felt since I was afraid to leave home to go to camp. Figuring between a "We'll just hook up this organ with the bladder and a blood supply" operation and "We'll slice you open from breastbone to below your navel, take out half the organs you can name in your abdomen, and juggle the rest for awhile before closing up," I banked on being in at least 60 percent more pain than I'd been during the transplant.
In a rough calculation of incision inches vs. weeks off, I came up with 7" TX and 3 weeks off, and prepared everyone at the newspaper office for a 9-10" incision with the removal and at least a month off.
What did help was taking the Tuesday prior to surgery off. I was able to finish painting the bedstead that would help this recovery -- wouldn't be crawling off a mattress on the floor. I then took the dogs outside -- this was a sunny day in the mid-60s -- and trimmed their coats and claws and played with them barefoot on the front lawn. Something about those perfect afternoon hours reminded me this was why I was going through surgery -- to have more days like this.
Surgery was scheduled for noon Nov. 11. I never knew surgeons, who usually want you to check in at 4 a.m., even worked that late.
My surgeon checked in and said she probably wouldn't have to take my spleen along with all the other organs -- that's a huge relief, as your spleen is something of a last-ditch defense against infection. She also predicted cheerfully "When these are out you'll look so svelte!" The stinker. She knew this was good news all around the whole time.
As Randy waited in the little kiosk with me and people occasionally popped in to hook up IVs, quiz me about anesthesia or confirm what was being removed, I thought of something. "I probably won't feel like going to Cheryl's parents' for Thanksgiving, but I bet you could go on your own," I suggested.
"Oh no. I'm not going to that," he shot back. Randy's the gregarious half of our couple and he really likes the whole Jahnke family, so this instant rejection surprised me. I looked at him in bemusement.
"I need to be home," he told me sternly. "You need a lot of supervision."
The idea that, like a puppy, you can't leave me home unsupervised for a couple hours cracked us both up. And that helped, too, as the pre-op area emptied of both patients and staff.
I was certainly the last customer in the shop and they seemed quite ready to get rid of me! This time, as they wheeled me through the halls (I'd insisted on being awake this time, so as not to miss so much) Randy didn't have any time to get emotional at the "goodbye corner." They whisked me right through it, and I barely had time to grab his hand for a split second.
About all I was able to observe in the OR was that there were, as in an old movie, mint-green glazed tiles on the walls. Also, I thought, the giant light hanging over me had better be well-secured. "The chandelier! The chandelier!" About this time, the group decided they'd had enough of the awake Holly, and I agreed to a push of the "relaxing shot" into my IV. I had time, as my ears began to go tinny, to announce, "It's working!" although I'm sure a few seconds later they could have seen that for themselves.
