10-23.
Got some good updates last night from Chad. The kidney was producing more than expected so far!
I slept poorly even though at about 9:30 pm I felt like I could fall over and sleep like a rock. Waking the kids up now for hugs before we head out.
I’m 6-4” tall and apparently that’s about the max height for easily strapping me to the operating table. They said it took about an hour to get me adjusted to the right position. Once the oxygen mask was on, they added the sleeping drug to the airflow that was it. Unless she used the IV to add the anesthesia – she never even gave me a chance to do the countdown to see if I could force myself to stay awake for ten seconds. I suppose OR rooms are serious places so no antics from the “tall glass of water.” I heard that same phrase from another OR nurse when I had a big splinter removed from my thumb. “Oh, wow you’reyour a tall drink of water!” Must be anesthesia phraseology used to make the nervous patient feel better about themselves. I’m sure they say similar things to other people of various body sizes.
“Oh, my you’re just a thimble of water, aren’t ya?”
“Oh, you’re a stocky igloo cooler of water. Mildred, get the heavy duty hoist over here.”
Recovery room- don’t remember much. My legs and body were shaking a bit from the pain and they thought I was cold. But I think I mumbled it felt a pain scale of 5 or so and they fixed that with some more pain killers. They gave me an abdominal block as well which would also help. Don’t even remember being wheeled to my presidential suite. Ya- I must be in a corner room or something because it’s about twice as big as the commoner rooms. I hope they don’t charge extra, but I heard it was the first available.
Mom, dad and Amanda were here most of the day. I drifted in and out and got some lunch and dinner. Kids came by after school. But unfortunately, I was not doing my best. Don’t think I was very talkative, I was probably at a pain level 4-5. (Out of ten) at that time. At least, as I’m writing this at 4 am, I’m at 2-3.and another nurse just came in to get a blood sample. I have two IVs in my right arm, so thought they’d use the open one for the blood draw. Nope- got it in my left arm. But she was very good, barely felt a thing.
It’s my first time with a catheter. They’ve emptied the bag quite a bit. Like more than they are used to I think. On time I think it was so full that my bladder was also getting full and uncomfortable and causing me to request more pain meds. I have an incision down there so I cannot really tell what’s happening. But I asked the nurse to check on that and they took 3 full measuring cups out of that. I felt much better after that. I hope the recipient’s new Jeff kidney was also performing amazing feats of pee generation and already making a huge difference for them.
Got my first walk in of about 1700 feet however I must have gone slow enough my watch only registered 6 steps! I was hoping to have a baseline to track my steps, but that wasn’t going to happen today.
Related Post:
Read about Chad’s surgery day: Recipient Surgery Day