Tag: kidney transplant

Clinic visit yesterday


  • departed with Red Cross driver in mini-van at 6:05 am
  • traffic heavy, so 3.5 hours to St. Mike’s Hospital annex on Queen St. East near Yonge
  • blood sugar too high, we have been too light with insulin
  • they believe all my trouble are due to this
  • spoke with dietician re diet  addition to claw back to low vitamins
  • home by 4:15 pm, slow drive to Barrie
  • for various boring small idiotic reasons we had not got me weighed
  • since surgery I dropped from 105 kg to 91.1 kg; too much, too fast
  • extremely tired when home finally; long day.

rate of progress


slower than hell

tender knees…I may have overdone with a simple exerrcise: simply standing up at side of my bed with facing my long low dresser…doing two x twenty standups…set in AM, set in evening.

our long awaited bathroom reno starts Tuesday and lots of small things should take a week.  Really looking forward to end result.

Then purchase two more small book cases for large living room si nce we got rid of some ol askew, cheap tall ones.  We skinnied down the library one more time.

 

Lots of good things happening.  Kidney working well.  A great donated kidney.  I am incredibly lucky.

not quite as advertised


kidney transplant is good. I am hopeful.

my recovery slow and progressing.

My restarted collection of old portable typewriters coming along nicely.

When I spoke with guys who had rec’d a kidney they all seemed like movie stars bursting with fresh energy.  I am not quite there. Today got to local lab for bloodwork. Smooth enough.  A struggle but done.

Tonight watched some Leafs hockey. Even pulled on my sweater.

I am reading with all the time cawed back from hemodialysis.

I am resting and hanging out with the critters, especially Louise the cat.

tricky, lucky day


this afternoon my sis fell in her bedroom racing to grab a phone call.

she is a kind, strong, celtic-viking Canadian retired RN.

she got herself up.

she is sore but otherwise unhurt.

this transplant recovery

business is not for sissies.

aflter this I prayed harder than I have ever before in my life.

God is good. It is a beautiful night.

my list of bumps


my list of bumps

please understand the new kidney is a marvellous joyful thrilling unbelievable gift. pray I am worthy of this gift.

please understand the new kidney is a marvellous joyful thrilling unbelievable gift.

On the flipside  I am building a list as we go along of the puzzling bumps  both my sister and I have encountered as we navigate through this new life. There is a whole range of things could’ve gone kind of funky and sideways. They’ve added a measured the way to our stress level and we’ve had to be very creative and try to work our way through all of these problems. Most of them ar very small.

what I’m trying to do is avoid hardened incorrect judgement and condemnation.

what I’m trying to do is avoid hardened incorrect judgement and condemnation.

We are trying very hard to get through a very difficult time.We’re doing pretty well.

If you step way back and look at this problem, healthcare. You stepped all the way back in time to about 25 years ago when some adolescent planner started to look at the deposit coming tsunami of the baby boomer generation is it aged became ill and again to exploit to their benefit massive new medical technology. It is simply a matter of sheer number  and weight of numbers. I hear a lot of these troubles are because of the gutless politicians who are afraid to actually raise taxes and encourage appropriate response to this number avalanche.  they fear is the fear of the polls. The problem is they’re not elected for a career. They are elected to make hard decisions to help the entire population of the young and the old and not just to consider their own self interest as in reelection. To really do the job  correctly and bravelyis extraordinarily difficult. I can’t even believe begin to understand how hard it is I just see hints of it.

bladder retraining


with kidney failure your first goal, a constant fight, is to lower your amount of fluid intake. In the two weeks before the call for transplant my daily fluid intake netted me zero urine production, down from a very modest urine output. In hospital a catheter was inserted for about five days. My new kidney began working immediately upon completion of surgery. The retraining of the bladder is simply teaching a dry stiff nonflexible bladder to recall the sensation of a fully urine loaded bla dder. In a short time bladder control should be reestablished. Not painful especially just odd sensation, back pressure esp. with the cathethter was peculiar.  An essential urine check is creatinin level, on dialysis mine was up to 1200′ then more like 700-800, now down to about 170. Not every kidney works so well after transplant but mine has, I am fortunate. other transplants take a little more time to ramp up production, almost all do.

never say never


After further reflection of the arguments pro and con I asked to be returned to the top of the list. Perhaps the tipping point when I calculated how many hours in dialysis.  I t works out to 720 per year. That is about 5 months working 37.5 hours per week.

And finally 5 months times 7.5 years is… well I am not going to crunch that. It is simply long enough.

Time to change up my life.

Photo of side altar monstrance at martyrs Shrine near Midland, Ontario.  I took this photo yesterday.

 

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First attempt


Interesting moment. A phone call tonight for a kidney. Had to say no thanks. I am under the weather and I face anti-rejection medication immediately which further lowers my immune system. I want to be well going in. I want the best chance. Interesting moment. Afterwards I thought of two people: the person who died and the next person in line to have the offer of a kidney. My time will come.