Transplant

False alarms
* August Bank Holiday weekend 2016 I got my first call on the Sunday, we spent all day at the hospital and nothing came of it - the donor didn't die in the alloted time, so the organs weren't viable.  I was ok on the day, I know these things can happen, but the following day I was devastated.
* I was called again in November while at work and told I was the stand-by for an organ.  All day I couldn't eat and at 10 o'clock that night I was phoned and told to 'stand down'.
* On Christmas Day 2016 I got a call at 4.45am, and we spent Christmas Day at the unit, got as far as chest x-ray, blood tests, ECG, chat with the surgeon, and signing the consent form.  Around 3pm we were told that the 'donor had withdrawn' which we thought might mean that the donor relatives had refused donation.  Whatever it meant, we left the hospital for the 3rd time disappointed and very tired.
* I was beginning to dread the phone ringing in the small hours.

THE one
On Monday 9th January 2017 the phone did again ring in the small hours - 5.45am, it was Brian from the Transplant Team again telling me I was first choice, not to do anything just yet but to wait for a second phonecall.  I got up and pottered, had a cuppa and some breakfast and just before 8am the phone rang again and I was asked to get to the hospital.  Hari came home from work and we set off.
Back to Ward 9 and asked to wait in the little office at the end of the corridor.  We were there for most of the day.  I had an ECG and bloods taken.  A student nurse came in to do my admission paperwork.  They decided not to send me for a chst x-ray as I'd had one Christmas Day, and they used the consent paperwork I'd signed then too.  The day was spent with nothing to eat or drink and trying to doze on the bed in the office.  A doctor came and chatted with me telling me everything that could possibly go wrong during the operation which was a scary 20 minutes.
Around tea-time we were moved from the office to a curtained area where an Italian nurse came and put a canula in my arm.  I take Warfarin cos I have Atrial Fibrillation and they needed to give me Vitamin K to reverse the effects of the warfarin.  I cried when she put the canula in, not cos it hurt but cos I was tired, hungry and scared stiff someone was going to say, its not happened and to go home.

Not long after that we were shown to one of the little side rooms on the ward.  One of the theatre anaesthetists came to see me to ask some questions and it was only at this point and thought bloody hell it might be going ahead.  Hari and I payed for the tv for 3 hours and watched Emmerdale and some other stuff to kill time.  I nurse came in with a gown and some compression stockings and a red hospital bracelet, so I put them all on except the stockings were cutting off the circulation in my legs so I took them off.  At 10pm a porter came and took me to theatre with Lisa the nurse, Hari came with me as far as theatre, gave me a kiss and left.

I started to get panicky and tearful (I always do at this stage - I'm such a wuss).  In the lil room outside theatre I was looked after my a team of 4 women which was nice.  They battled to get a canula in my arm and had many attemps covering me in bruises and making my cry (which is easy).  Eventually I asked if they could put one in my foot as I can't feel them and they did!  Once I was on the operating bed and they'd fixed all the monitors to me, an oxygen mask was put over my mouth and nose and they injected some painkiller to the canula in my foot.  Then they said 'We're giving you the second fluid now, tell me when you start to feel a bit different'... a couple of seconds later I started to say 'I'm feeling a......'
At 7.30am I woke up in recovery with a new kidney :)

Catch up...

Hi all,

I haven't been here and posted anything for a while.

Well.  I finally made it to doing home dialysis.  After 9 long months of going to the training unit 3 times a week, I finally made it and was doing my dialysis at home.  I guess that's a reason to celebrate but every time I think "yayy", I then remember I am still doing dialysis 3 times a week, nothing has really changed.  Well, I dont have to drive to the unit; that's changed.

Things have been going great at home, my first day was a bit traumatic with the machine alarming, technicians having to come out and various bits & pieces but I had the support of one of the community nurses so it was all ok in the end.

The support of the nurses at the unit was amazing.  I knew I'd miss them once I was home and I did.