Screw you, Percoset

I decided yesterday that I'd rather be in pain than be nauseous for hours.  For that reason, I've stopped taking the Percoset and have moved on to Ibuprofen.  I simply cannot seem to find a prescription pain med that doesn't make me feel like hurling my guts out. Unfair!!

The Ibuprofen works okay.  It doesn't take the pain "almost away" like Percoset, but dulls it somewhat.  I'll have to live with that for now.

I've been thinking about my surreal time in the hospital and realized that I was not asking for enough pain meds from the nurses.  They asked me to rate my pain level 1-10, and I'm sure that I was lowballing it, not because I was trying to "tough it out" but because I had no idea what was normal or appropriate. It was driving Alan crazy but he wasn't sure if he should challenge me or not.  In retrospect, I should have told the nurses whenever it hurt and let the them tell me that I'd had too much.  Thank goodness for the night nurse who simply walked in and stated "here's your dilaudid" and put it in the IV.  The other nurses (bless them, they really were good and attentive) let me call the shots.

Logan's progress

You may be curious about how my nephew is doing. The answer is "reasonably well." The kidney liked him pretty much right away. What I think complicates things is that his body and all of the functions we associate with eating and drinking are now completely upside down for him. He is doing for the first time many things you and I take for granted. That means a whole lot of new problems, but hopefully problems are about learning to do things for the long-term (such as eat) that won't require re-learning later. My sister can chime in if I'm not interpreting correctly. This transplant was a good thing for sure, but send your good wishes his way while he gets through these new challenges.

One Week Later: Hurray for Abdominals!

My primary care docs often have told me how great my abdominal muscles are.  I attribute this to years of running: you can't really run without developing your abs.  It just kinda happens.  After running my marathon in June I probably had some awesome abdominal muscles, but after the marathon not only did I cut way back on running but decided to continue eating as if I was still training for the marathon.  Bad, bad idea for those abs.  Makes me wonder if this recovery process would have been easier had I had more discipline from June through October...but as I joked (badly) all the way through October:  "Give me more cake.  I could die on the table!"

One week post-surgery, I can sit down, get up, roll over, etc on my own, with only occasional requests to Al to help me up.  Slightly painful but not debilitating.  I also ate a full meal last night for the first time since last Tuesday, which I think is momentous.  Haven't been able to stomach anything more than liquids and small food bits for a week.  I'm also down to a single Percoset every six hours or so, which I think explains why I can eat more.  I think this is remarkable progress, but there are still several things that I just can't do without being all pathetic:

• Cough, or even clear my throat.
• Laugh, which is difficult when you live with Alan who doesn't even know when he's being funny.
• Sit in a chair for longer than 5 minutes or so (I'm reaching my max as I type this).
• Stretch.  This one is harder to deal with that you might imagine.

I know these things will all get easier, and apologies to those who have had abdominal surgery and to whom this is nothing new.  I'm home now, which is A-W-E-S-O-M-E.  My couch, my jammies, my tea, my television.  This should help my abs tremendously.  I'm going to take my first Percoset of the day and watch Ellen.

Day 47. Still no sign of land.

Hey-o. blog nerds. It's Alan again, which is probably obvious, since Sue is far to nice to ever call her friends 'blog nerds.' We're out of the hospital and in the hotel. And by in the hotel, i mean ALL-in. Sue hasn't left the room since Friday, other than to wander up and down the hallways like a cupcake-pajama wearing extra in The Shining.

So far, the weekend has entailed sleep, sleep, more sleep, waking up to take pain meds, eating a couple of crackers, and then going back to sleep. Seriously, i've never seen sue sleep this much ever. But on the plus side, all that log-sawing is doing a world of good. Each day is better than the last, and this afternoon has been spent lying on the bed, reading the paper, doing crosswords, and swearing at our various fantasy football teams.

Sue is hoping to get out and about sometime tomorrow -- maybe for a last Minnesota meal at Campus Pizza down the street. Then it's onto the airport Tuesday afternoon, which is going to be all sorts of interesting:

Security: Ma'am, i need to do a pat-down.
Sue: Oh Christ, no.
Security: Please raise your arms and--
Sue: If you touch me, i will kill you to death. ...Seriously.

So if we end up arrested for airport terrorism, at least you know what happened.

Transplant complete!

The kidney is out. Wooo!  Unfortunately, that means Sue is lying in bed doped up on Percocet, so this blog entry is being brought to you by her husband, Al.

The surgery went as well as could be expected. Into the hospital at 5:30, change into a gown with no ass, then get wheeled off to an operating room. (i was surprised to see that the gowns still hang open at the butt. Really, modern medicine? You can replace an organ but you can't sew a thirty cent robe? But i digress.) After that, it was three hours of nervously pacing around a waiting room (me) or lying passed out on a table while strangers loot your internal organs (Sue). After that, she was wheeled into a room and i was allowed to join her.

Good points of the week so far:

1) Everyone is alive and well, and Logan seems to be taking the kidney well.
2) The room is a single, so i was able to stay with her
3) There's a lot of football on today, so we're able to keep ourselves distracted.
4) The staff is friendly and supremely competent.

Lousy points of the week:

1) Surgery hurts. A lot. Sue is as tough as they come, so when she winces, i know it's no joke. She's bearing up remarkably well, but it's still hard to see.
2) Hospitals are noisy. Lots of beeping and clicking and general mechanical sounds, all interspersed with some lady down the hall who can't stop moaning and yelling the phrase "No one is going to touch my butt!" ...We didn't ask.
3) They brought me a chair that folds out, but i was too dumb to fold it out, and spent the night sleeping in this weird pretzel shape.
4) Said sleep was fitful at best for both of us, mostly because people keep coming in every hour or so to inject drugs, draw blood, replace IVs, and do other medical stuff. All important, of course, but distracting.

So...yeah. There ya go. Hopefully Sue will feel more perky in the next few days and provide an update from her own fingers. Thanks to all for the letters, texts, emails, and other general messages of support. It's been nice.

It's the left one

Heard today that the left kidney's the one to go. Will have three incisions, one 3-inch vertical and two small horizontal. Good thing I wore my baggy pants.

Another good thing? That we left Seattle when we did, before snowpocalypse 2010.

Off for Round 2

This will be the final round.  That kidney is goin' down in two days.

It's snowing here in Seattle, which is pretty, but hopefully won't make everyone lose their minds as we try to get to the airport.

Kidney a No Go

...or should we use "Kidney a No No"?  Hm.  Can't decide.  Let's hope this is the last time I'll need to use it.

Back home in Seattle after a whirlwind 48-hour trip.  Here's a synopsis:
1.  Get up at 4:30, leave for the airport at 5:10, wait 1/2 hour to check our goddamn bag, wait another 1/2 hour in goddamn security line, get to the goddamn gate during the "board all passengers" period.  Stress!!
2.  Fly to MSP, check in to hotel, feel paranoia increase about getting sick, stay in slightly scary hotel room from 2pm-on watching sitcom reruns and eating Chinese takeout.
3.  Get up at 6:15 to get to U of M Hospital, have 1,534 vials of blood drawn, get chest x-ray, EKG, and then find out that the transplant can't occur on this day.
4.  Feel immense disappointment for just a few seconds, get visits from about 18 doctors to explain the situation, feel awful for my sister who is beside herself, then get into heavy problem-solving mode with Al.
5.  Within one hour of #4, book a new flight out, cancel our hotel, rebook Miso's boarding, book a new surgery date (11/24), book a new flight for the surgery week, book a new hotel for surgery week, call or e-mail everyone who might be interested in developments.
6.  Go to airport and have 4 vodka tonics, get on plane, fly home.
7.  Contact our transplant coordinator to ask for a new medical explanation letter for work, contact HR and my manager to figure out how to move my short-term disability time period.

We're exhausted.

Anyway, transplant rescheduled for 11/24 (yep, day before Thanksgiving).  It will work this time.  If it doesn't, can we borrow 5 bucks?

Less than a week to go

I'm getting anxious.  I'm sure everything will be fine, but having never had surgery I'm feeling a bit overwhelmed at the moment.  I'm also desperately trying to avoid getting sick, which is silly, because I NEVER get sick.  But now that I'm so paranoid about it I almost feel like I'm going to make it happen.  I'm also drinking Airborne for the first time in my life (and it's absolutely vile) in my desperate attempt to not get sick.

Obsession is never good, no matter what it's about.  But do you know what IS good?  Beards!  Big, Jim James-type beards!  Got a beard-growing contest going on at work, and can't wait to return in December to see the guys.  We're calling it "No-Shave November".

I've also accumulated a large pile of chocolate from my friends and coworkers that I will be nursing throughout November.  Thanks, friends, for taking care of me.

Thank you, Minor & James Medical

I fired my UW doc a few months ago over a simple blood draw.  I guess it's more fair to say that I fired the  institution of the UW, which is sad because I worked for the UW for many, many years.  I kind of liked my doctor, too.  What pushed me over the edge was the clusterf*** I experienced just trying to get a BLOOD DRAW.  A blood draw!  It took me almost two weeks and 7 different phone calls just to walk into the UW Lab, and when I did, they were giant jerks.  I realized that if I had that much trouble with a blood draw, imagine what might happen if I needed something more serious.  I also felt that there was no excuse that the UW Lab, ironically located right next to the UW Transplant Clinic, had no clue how the donor process worked.

So, I now have a doc at Minor & James Medical.  Much smaller facility, and more contained.  I had to get yet another blood draw there yesterday--more donor process stuff.  It still confused the M&J Lab a little, but it was only 10 minutes of confusion as opposed to 10 days.  And they were nice to me, asked me questions about the transplant, and wished me luck.  I am now a loyal patient of Minor & James.  Need a new doctor?

Wow, this blog is good therapy.

Fly away, little kidney, flyflyfly...

Welcome to my blog. As someone who hates talking about herself, this should be an interesting experiment. 

I'm chronicling my experience as an organ donor.  To specify, I'm donating a kidney to my nephew, who we all knew from the moment he was born would eventually need one from someone else.  I got tested, thinking what the hell, what are the real chances that I'll be a match?  Well, surprise.  Apparently I was the top candidate.  My first reaction was, admittedly: "Oh, shit!"

I've never been really sick, never been hospitalized, never had surgery.  I've worked in healthcare IT for the past 12 years, so I know my way around a hospital and clinic from a different perspective.  I don't think I'm prepared to be a patient, though.

That came to a head this past week.  I had a bit of a nervous breakdown, hissy fit, conniption, tantrum.  Full-on.  I mean screaming "FUCK YOU!", giving a piece of mail the middle finger, kicking the wall, punching the door frame.  I haven't been that angry since high school accounting, when I couldn't balance those goddamn debits and credits for my imaginary business balance sheet.  I feel really silly about it, but I obviously needed it, and at least my husband and dog were not there to witness it.  Not that they didn't get an earful, because even later that evening as I was describing my little episode to my friends, I was so very angry.  I had managed to grab out of the drying rack a beautiful little pottery coffee cup that my friends had purchased in Hawi on the Big Island, and turned that little cup over and over in my hands while I spewed.  My friend Marty had to literally look away because he was certain that I'd throw it against the wall.  Precious coffee cup!  You are safe.  And I feel better.