written on October 31, 2014
I love how great this kidney is making me feel. I talked to a friend on the phone yesterday whom I hadn’t talked to since the week of the surgery and she was surprised at how much better I sounded than the last time we spoke. I told her I feel so much better, because I really do. A new kidney is so miraculous…
It is strange, however, to have a new kidney in your abdomen. Your kidneys are in your back, alongside your spine, just inside the bottom of your rib cage. They’re buried in there, but they aren’t attached to anything. I mean, they have a vein, an artery and a ureter coming out of them, but they’re not attached to bones. Which means they move every time you breathe. A lot of people don’t know that – and neither did I until I had my first kidney biopsy in 2005.
Now I have one sitting in my lower abdomen, slightly below my belly button and above where my bladder is. Keep in mind they had to shove my intestines aside to get it in there. And keep in mind I’ve lost so much weight since the surgery (I’m still around 142, which means at least 26 pounds in the last 2 weeks) that I don’t have a lot of fat left (I still have some love handles though – man, those just will not go away!). What this means is, every time I take off my shirt and look at my abdomen, I’m impressed with how flat it is. And then I look just below my waist line, and there’s this unsightly bulge covered in the butterfly bandages (those were supposed to fall off on their own after the first week, and I’m more than willing to wait for it to happen – I’m not a fan of peeling them off by myself). This bulge is the new kidney (and some soft tissue inflammation – yes, there’s still some swelling going on inside). If you looked at me, you’d probably wonder what I have growing inside of me. Flat, flat, flat, bulge. Thank goodness wearing pants helps cover it. Although wearing pants also irritates the incision, so I’m getting used to that feeling also.
I asked my doctor about this bulge on Monday and he admitted that most patients don’t have that issue. He said it’s my punishment for being in such good shape. Most patients, he said, have a certain amount of fat around their middle when they come in for the surgery. I didn’t have much, and he made it sound like they remove a little of it anyway to make more room for the kidney (I haven’t talked to the surgeon about that, so I don’t know how accurate that is). But in my case, there wasn’t much fat there to begin with and then I lost so much fluid weight that whatever I had just disappeared. He said in a few months, when I start gaining weight again, it should appear more normal. I hope so – I’ll get used to seeing it every day if I have to (and it’s definitely not a problem for all the benefits the kidney is giving me), but it is a little disturbing to see it, I think.
Just another little something to get used to on this road to recovery. I love that I’m still learning and discovering things, even after the surgery. Keeps me curious and interested to see what will happen next.
Now as long as the bulge doesn’t get any bigger, I’ll be fine. If it starts to grow, I’ll have to worry they put something other than a kidney inside me. And wouldn’t that just make for a perfect Halloween?
Happy Halloween everyone!