Surgery day! We arrive at the hospital at 5:45am, and cheeked
in. Get Shawn to his holding room in
short stay so we hurried up so we could
wait, repeat the med list, birthday day and name, a million times, and get
poked with lots of needles for an i.v. sight, a backup i.v. sight and excreta
At 8:30 The anesthesiologist came
in to give a run down and it kinda hit "hey this is happening!!!" I don’t
know about Shawn but that’s when I started to get a little nervous, maybe not
nervous, but anxious. Next to visit was one of the surgery nurses to give a run
down and answer questions. We have gone over everything so many times we gave
her the run down and had no questions. The only thing that was changed was the surgeon’s
decision the to open Shawn up the old way (one long incision from the bottom of
the sternum and down for 8 inches) rather than do the operation laparoscopically
(two 4 inch incisions one over the kidney
and one over the new home for the kidney and two small 1-2 inch incissons) the
change was made because Shawn’s tinny body mass couldn’t support all the cuts
and as they heal they will tug on each other and not heal properly.
On the surgical
team we had a surgeon the remove the kidney, his resident and the resident’s
intern, the surgeon to put the kidney in its new home, his resident and the resident’s
intern, and the surgeon who hooked the kidney back up to the bladder, and yes
his resident and his resident’s intern. Not to mention the nursing staff
involved in all of this. In total around
20-25 people.
So somewhere
between all of this I kissed my husband good bye and started waiting.
8 hours
of waiting is rather boring, no matter how much of anything you bring along to
keep you occupied. Good thing my dearest bailey and my mother in law were with
me. We took turns wandering around, found a very nice Terrence garden in the sun
with some odd statues, and the yummy cafeteria on the 3rd floor.
Time seemed to pass entirely to
slow and the updates didn't come nearly enough, but no news is good news and on
schedual 8hrs later the doc came out to tell us how everything went.
The kidney was stuck back in the
ribcage, something that wasn’t foreseen on any of the 20 some c.t. scans done
prior, so it was hard to remove. It was also covered in a syrupy coating that had/has the surgeons baffled. All in all
the kidney was very “angry looking”, that’s a direct quote. Once the
kidney was out they were able so to see that it actually sat against the nerve cluster,
obviously it was there it’s whole life but the kidney stones and the lipthoipsy
operations aggregated both the kidney
and the nerves enough that they cant live that close to each other
anymore. There was a small clear fluid cyst on the kidney that wasn’t causing
any problems as far as anybody could tell, most martial artist get them, but it
was removed anyway. The ureter had a skinny spot in it that we knew about so
they dissected the ureter taking that skinny part out. Doing that also saved
the surgeon from having to disconnect the ureter at the bladder and making a
new hole for it to connect to in the bladder as is the typical procedure, it’s
just one less way for infection to take hold. Once the kidney was put into its
new home in the pelvis just right of the belly button and about an inch below
it was hooked up and started making urine again. Another direct quote, “it got
happy again.” Our surgeons were and
continue to be amazing.
Shortly after, with bailey at my
side I were directed to the room we call home for the next week and continued
to wait for the patient. We waited and
waited and waited, finally another hour later Shawn arrived, very groggy, very
out of the it. Shawn is on oxygen, has a central line in his neck, 9 inch
incision, drain tube coming out of his belly, back up iv’s in each arm, the
sight where the internal blood pressure monitor was located, urine catheter,
and leg squeezer cuff on his legs that squeeze his legs to help promote blood
circulation. We have known from past operations that Shawn doesn’t do well with
anesthesia but we had been told that every precaution would be taken to ensure minimal
amounts of sickness after surgery. Right. The more Shawn woke up the sicker he
got, ever actually throwing up but lots of dry heaving and needing to throw up.
So I hand over my car keys to Bailey, and unexpectedly stayed the night
The nursing staff was good to us
coming in every hour to cheek on us, we thought maybe it would all pass but… at
the 1am check, no sooner does the nurse come in and leave like 3 minutes later
Shawn shoots strait up and start dry heaving again. He tried the green nasty
tasting swabs and water but it made him gag and dry heave more. He then ripped
off his oxygen and declared it made him claustrophobic along with the, well
everything. I stopped him form pulling everything out and called the nurse. She
came back with more nausea meds. When I asked her about some anxiety meds she
argued with me saying she had to call the doctor for something like that and
that this would all pass. About that time I look over and Shawn is ripping off
the leg squeezers. The nurse had a fit telling us that they are the difference
between life and death after surgery. I know I work in a hospital I know, I argued
that there were making him claustrophobic and we needed to do something about
that. She said she wasn’t calling the doctor and we needed to deal. Needless to
say the oxygen never went back on and he went through the night with only on
squeezer.
At 7am shift change the new nurse argued
again that we had to have the leg things on all the time until Shawn was
walking at least 3 times a day. Shawn said alright we are walking. The nurse
said no. Shawn said yes. So we walked. 8
hours after kidney transplant surgery and my husband is up walking the halls
just so he didn’t have to wear the leg things. When the nurse returned him to
bed she offered the pain pump button to Shawn. He said no.
The week passed in a blur of sever nausea,
to the point that the docs didn’t know how to control it. They were concerned
that all the fluids, received by IV only, were coming out as fast as they were
going in; if it kept up they were talking about a feeding tube just so that
Shawn was receiving proper nourishment. Surgically Shawn was perfect. His kidney
was making good urine. All the levels cheeked were perfect. He was walking 3
times a day, not using the pain pump, they were rather impressed actually. The urine
cath came out early, he was doing remediably well.
On day 3 the doc said alright eat,
if it’s going to come up its going to come up, just make sure that whatever it
is taste good coming up.
On day 4 the anesthesiologist came
in declaring “acupuncture!” apparently
they have had success with two wrist points for years and a few anesthesiologists just
completed a general acupuncture course giving them a broader range of points to
use. She used all of them on Shawn. The miracle is that they worked! Almost instantly
the nausea was gone. He was eating and alert and chatting with everybody. Not comatose
and throwing up every half hour. He was able to have the central line come out
with was huge because apparently an i.v. in your neck isn’t fun, who knew? Later
that evening however, Shawn coughed a deep gaging cough that triggered his over
active gag reflex and were back to throwing up all the time.
Day 5 exhausted not knowing what to
do anymore, the surgeon told us we could leave if only Shawn could hold down
food. Shawn said he wanted to leave the hospital stay and being cooped up in
the unit was making him crazy and messing with him. He was still feeling claustrophobic
and needed out. The surgeon said oh you’re feeling that way I had no idea you should
have told the nurse she could have had us order something for that
anxiety. YOU THINK!!! WE DID!!!! 4 DAYS
AGO!!!!! With new drugs ordered, breakfast ordered and hopes of going home we
started day 5. We were home 12 hours later resting in our own home.
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