written on October 27, 2014
Day 10 post-transplant, and I’m feeling really good today.
Today is the first day it’s not hurting to pee. There’s still some pressure and sometimes I still have start-up problems (you stand there, ready to go, but nothing comes out). But overall, today is the first day since the surgery when everything seems to be flowing the way it should.
Today was my first “official” clinic day. I say official because I went on Friday but the doctor sent me to the ER before I could see him because I was having problems breathing. We spent 10.5 hours at the ER, all to have them tell me they have no idea what caused the shortness of breath (there’s a blog post about that coming soon).
No more shortness of breath since, which is nice. Although the cough I had before the surgery has come back with a vengeance. Turns out that hurts the incision a lot, every time I cough (which sometimes is quite a lot).
My lab work still looks good. No sign of infection in my blood or urine, my body temperature still a slightly cool 97.5. Blood pressure was normal this morning – 126/82, before I took any medications. The doctor is hoping if that continues for another week or two we can slowly wean me off all blood pressure meds. Wouldn’t that be nice?
My incision is looking good – no bleeding, no discharge, no redness or inflammation. Although it does look weird to see my abdomen – my weight was 142.8 this morning, which is still 26 pounds lighter than the day of the surgery (I weighed 168 pounds the day of the surgery). Needless to say, I’m really skinny right now. So skinny in fact that you can see the bump in my abdomen where the kidney is. The rest of my stomach is completely flat, and then there’s a noticeable bump. It looks like I have a baby or alien growing inside of me. Thank goodness nothing’s moving in there – I don’t think I could handle that. I don’t know how my wife, or any woman who has had a child, can live with the movements of something inside of you. It’s creeping me out just thinking about it.
The doctor this morning was very impressed with my health so far. I told him I can tell some of the nerve endings are coming back, or at least more of the anesthesia is wearing off, because I’m feeling a little more pain around the incision. He was surprised to hear that – most people take about a month before that happens, he said. But it’s good – it means I’m healing.
I’m still waiting for the final lab results to come in so I can see if they’re going to want me to change up any of my medications. I’m taking quite a few every day right now – the three for anti-rejection (Prograf, Prednisone and Myfortic), an anti-fungal, an anti-viral, an anti-biotic (Bactrim), a stool softener (Colace), phosphorus pills (3 times a day), two blood pressure meds (Amlodipine and Carvedilol), I’m trying to take some probiotics with every meal (another transplant recipient and a homeopathic friend of mine said it’s the best thing to keep my digestion on track with all of the other meds). I think that’s all.
All in all, things are going very well. I’m hoping to start walking outside sometime this week. Maybe even tomorrow.
I turn the big 4-1 tomorrow – can you believe it? This is the first year where I haven’t been able to plan anything for my birthday. I’m bummed I won’t be able to see my kids, but at least my wife is going to come and visit me. And apparently my brother is going to come up too. At least I won’t have to spend it by myself.
This is also the first year in a long time where I’m starting the year healthy and well. I’ve had kidney problems for so many years…it feels good to know that 41 is going to be a great year. For lots of reasons. Not the least of which is the new kidney.
I’m excited and hopeful and relaxed and grateful and glad. You thought I was positive before? I think my optimism has just cranked up a few hundred notches in the last ten days. No mountain’s too big, no hurdle too high..Tim 3.0 has arrived.