little by little

Holly has slept most of the day and is catching up. She went for a walk with a walker and came back in a wheel chair. Even so the therapist said it was a good outing for the first time. Holly's disturbed night probably contributed to her fatigue on that outing. All the responsible folk are saying that Holly is doing well. More rest and more attention and more progress.

The day after the next day

It's Saturday I guess. My days are getting a bit confused. I came in to to see Holly this morning and she looked a little rough. She had some nausea last night which interfered with her sleep. Over lunch I looked at the printed out PowerPoint, from the social worker, we missed because of Holly's exhaustion and discovered that all her anti-rejection drugs had nausea as a side effect. That explains that. About the time I got there they administered a more powerful anti-nausea drug and the old stand by benadryl and she was deeply asleep. I sat with her a couple hours went out to lunch and by the time I came back she was up for a short time then back to sleep. Before she fell asleep I read some emails to her. Thanks for all your good wishes and prayers. All the corporeal knitting parties are working hard to repair the rents and cuts and bind in the new tenant.

So hooray for sleep and deep breathing.

More progress on the next day

Holly had a big day. She is eating soft food mashed potatoes and a bowl of tomato soup which she enjoyed greatly. She got to stand up for a couple minutes with occupational therapist. About 6 O'clock she was moved from the the Intermediate Care Unit which is like a low level ICU. The nurse said she was going to get a wheel chair when I looked up she was sitting on the side of the bed. I said "What are you doing?" She said she was getting ready to go. The nurse brought in to the room and as she was arranging things Holly stood up. So the nurse arranged Holly in the chair and then got her IV tree together and started out of the room. She said it was good that Holly is trying. By the time we got to Holly's new room she was pretty well spent.

Her new kidney is working great and in between her activities like moving rooms and standing Holly is resting and getting stronger. The pain management is still making her foggy at times. It's only the day after and so that's to be expected.

We are grateful for excellent surgical teams and the competent and pleasant care on the 6th floor of the University of Minnesota Medical Center. We have a few more days working with these folk on this procedure.

Holly will be back on the blog soon, but until then I'll keep adding to it.

Randy

Day one after the day

Yesterday was a big waiting day for me. We started waiting at the surgery admissions lounge then after they took Holly away to the operating room I waited with Cheryl's parents Jim and Mary in the big waiting room. I don't know many other people I would rather wait with. They went to be with Cheryl after she got to the recovery room. Then after the surgeon stopped by and let me know Holly was doing well I went and had lunch and then waited almost 3 hours until Holly got to her room. It was listed as a 2 hour wait but I am assured this is an example of "hospital time."

Holly got increasingly lucid as the evening wore on and we wore out too. At that point I went home.

Today she is still improving and waiting to go to her next room. Still hospital time I think. Everybody is very happy with how things are going.

Randy

Gone to get a kidney

That's what I wrote on the calendar at work for April 22. Amazing that something I thought would happen -- let's see, journalist math -- in the 2020s is happening now. At least I'll have an easy time keeping track of how long I've had the transplant -- a nice round number!

I will have to get used to the worry of being immunosuppressed, where a small infection can get to a big one and "simple" viruses can send me to the hospital. I'll have to get used to a new medication regimen that may make me feel sicker before we reach equilibrium. I'll have to start protecting myself from the sun -- apparently without a 100-percent immune system you're more susceptible to skin cancer, and it's the #1 cancer for transplant patients.

But I won't miss the fatigue -- nobody can get much done with 13 hours of sleep a day. I won't miss the dullness between my ears. After 6 months or so, when they take out my grossly enlarged "native" kidneys, I won't miss the pain and the burden of carrying around what specialists tell me is basically "like carrying twins."

And, best of all, I'm not going to have to go on dialysis.

Is life going to be perfect? No. But is anyone's normal life perfect? Nope! And all I ask is a shot at that kind of -- imperfect -- normal life.

Holly

The trouble with Tribbles

OK, they're not Tribbles, but they are small, cute, and appear to be reproducing at a rapid rate on the Swanson half-acre.

One of these things is much like another.

When the snow finally melted I discovered I'd been on quite a buying spree at last September's plant clearances. I have a fondness for junipers and for fall color, and these little guys have great feathery fronds and keep their bright gold color all year long.

The dilemma: I have three of them, all in the front yard in various spots. As you can see, these aren't background plants. One is a neat accent; two look like overkill and three make it clear to the neighbors that someone at our house has a serious problem.

I may even have proudly carried them off from the same garden center week after week, but that's been lost in the mists, as well. I don't remember where I got the first, much less the second and third.

It'll be great to get a new kidney, but I also hope I get my brain back.

Garden centers are stocking up again and I don't need to wake up one day with a fourth Tribble.

Who's Cheryl?

and why has it taken me this long to write about her?

Well, how do you do justice in words to someone who's saving your life? All the surgeons, specialists, knowledge and medication involved in kidney-disease treatments -- none of them can do for me what one accountant with a talent for music can.

I first met Cheryl when we both lived on fourth-floor Bodien as freshmen at Bethel College. We both had an 8 a.m. class Tuesdays and Thursdays that first semester and started going to breakfast together. I still remember the first story she ever told me -- about an 80-year-old guy up in Ely, where her family took a winter vacation each year, who skiied back and forth from his cabin to town to get groceries and mail. My family's big on stories, and so this was an attention-getter for me.

Evenings, you could find me in her room; she'd be working on music notation or accounting while I edited my news assignments. By spring, when we were signing up with a group for a townhouse, everybody else was figuring out who they wanted as a roommate. They'd already decided for us, though. "You and Cheryl will be roommates, of course. We just assumed that." And we were -- for the three years at Bethel and 4 1/2 years afterward, until I married Randy.

We have the same sense of humor -- a delight in quirky personalities and telling anecdotes -- a love for dogs, affection and admiration for our parents and a prediliction for evenings at home with our feet up. You'll see we look somewhat alike too. At Bethel, people asked "Are you two sisters?" constantly. One girl was so insistent about it she started theorizing "Well, if your father had met her mother. . ." I assured her she could stop there.

But, thankfully, Cheryl's not too like me. She's patient, gentle, tolerant and somehow put up with me all those years. When I think of all the blessings I've had from being her friend, I wonder what on earth she's gotten from knowing me -- practice in forbearance?

The only people I told when I found I had kidney disease in 1994 were Randy, my parents, and Cheryl and her parents. Little did I know she'd planned -- since then -- to offer me her kidney when the time came I needed intervention. "I figure I'd miss you a lot more than I'd miss a kidney," she said last March.

I said no at first -- I didn't want her to put herself at risk for me. But after reading the studies and recommendations, it looked to me like the vast majority of donors have no setbacks at all after donating. And, as Cheryl put it "I knew you'd say no at first. I figured I'd just wait until things got really ugly."

Well, thanks to her, they didn't. I realized after living with a new life plan for only a few days that I'd been waiting and watching for disintegration for years. It's not a good place to be. My friend Cheryl saved me from that, and I can't say enough about her.

Brave? Keep in mind this is the person I regularly have to help with ailing birds in her yard and dead mice in traps. And blood? We used to watch "Rescue 911" together -- well, I used to watch it. She got brief glimpses of William Shatner and those placid family scenes with the foreboding soundtrack during the times she didn't have her hands over her eyes.

For her to do this for me, I'll say she's brave.

Did you know the Bible mentions kidneys? God is said to know a person by their kidneys.

With one of Cheryl's, I'll consider myself that much further ahead.