in search of treasure

Crazy days!!! July and August have been crazy and insane months. Between surgery and Grandmas passing, and recovering from surgery, and having mom and dad home for grandma’s memorial I am hoping September will be slow and boring.  

While it was good to have my parent’s home and to get to see family I haven’t seen in a long time it wasn’t the greatest of circumstances. I love my family and cant believe how blessed I am to have them in my life. We had beautiful memorial that my parents planed from half way across the country, and all my Grandma’s siblings were able to attend.

                In April 2003, Thomas S. Monson gave an awesome talk that I love to listen to its called ‘In search of treasure'

 http://www.lds.org/general-conference/2003/04/in-search-of-treasure?lang=eng&query=s.+%28name%3a%22Thomas+S.+Monson%22%29

Presidant Monson says we need 1-learn form the past. 2-prepare for the future. 3-live in the present. President Manson tells a touching story of a young accomplished violin player who has gotten the opportunity to play for and orchistra and will be able to make enough money to send some home to his mom and siblings, then that same week, he gets a mission call. The only way for him pay for his mission with out having his mother sale more land is to sale the violin. he chooses to sell his prize possession to serve the lord. In a journal entry many years later he writes saying it was the best choice he has ever made. 

To prepare for the future  President Monson shares a few verses from a song that go like this- "Wishing will make it so, Just keep on wishing, And care will go." how true we know that not to be. We must strive everyday to make our dreams come true and take the necessary steps, my dad used to say "want in one hand, crap in the other and see what one fills up faster" we must prepare. To quote the talk Thomas S. Monson says "Our journey into the future will not be a smooth highway which stretches from here to eternity. Rather, there will be forks and turnings in the road, to say nothing of the unanticipated bumps. We must pray daily to a loving Heavenly Father, who wants each of us to succeed in life."
Living in the present can be challenging the past can be hard to over come and the future is easy to get caught up in as well. don't be the woman with the fancy clothes waiting for a special occasion in the example given in the talk. wear a new out fit to go grocery shopping. tell the people around you that you love them. Don't think that tomorrow you'll do it, you never know what tomorrow brings, will you be able to tell them tomorrow?  Sadly not always.
My grate aunt Sharron gave a touching eulogy about a woman I hardly knew.  I learned a lot about my Grandma and her kind and giving spirit that I didn’t know before. She was a very hard working woman and loved to care for people. Sadly I don't get the chance to find these things out first hand from Grandma I get to learn them after the fact second hand. 

                                                    all Gunter siblings and spouses

                                             Grandpa Murphy, Dennis, Tawnia, Bob

                                                           Gunter sibling 

                                                The cousins, most of them any way

                                                         The Murphy family

                                      (in the middle) Kolene with her parents and younger siblings

                                                        Me and Grandma

If you haven't you must ready the talk it can be found at the above link provided it works or at lds.org search Thomas S. Monson 2003 "in search of treasure"

our week at OHSU -

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.

The week was such a testimony builder for me at least. Between all of the people praying for us and the priesthood blessing we received before and during the operation and hospital stay. I felt selfish calling on so many people to help us and pray for us, I felt a little like I was abusing the power of prayer and the priesthood, then it was pointed out to me  that I was simply acting on faith and isn’t that what we are to do in times like these? My thanks and love goes out to all of those we called upon to pray for us, without your love and faith we wouldn’t have come so far in such a short amount of time.

Why Surgery?

     For the past two years Shawn has been fighting kidney stones. Mass amounts of stones. 9 in a year. When we tried to figure out what causes the stones every test came back saying...nothing. Every test comes back saying that there is no reason for the stones. The stones that were analyzed came back as regular run of the mill kidney stones. The 3 different 24hr urine test all came back saying that Shawn doesn’t output any abnormal amount of anything that his kidney stones are made of. But like I said, he had 9 stones in a year. Unable to pass the stones Shawn had 2 lithotripsy operations, the operation uses sonic waves to break up the stones in the kidney and make the stones passable through the ureters, the tubes that go from the kidney to the bladder. Somewhere after the second surgery the pain started or rather never went away.

     The first doctor thought that maybe some particles from the stones were stuck in the ureter. To add to everything Shawn’s ureter gets really narrow at one point, most ureters are able to pass 2mm stones but not Shawn’s apparently. That wasn’t the case anyway. So then the doctors thought maybe it was another stone. But no, all the scans said no there was no stone in his kidney or ureters. Through all of this the pain was getting worse, going from his right kidney and down the inside of his groin. Every time Shawn would stand up or sit up he got instant pain in the kidney and sick to his stomach. The only time he was able to get relief was laying down. But it wasn’t very long before even that wasn’t working and the pain was constant weather he was sitting, standing or laying down, and growing in intensity. School dropped him because he was missing too much class, and work told him come back when he was better and able to work on a regular basis. They actually really understand and have a job waiting if Shawn wants it when he is released back to work. Test after test and nobody knew what was going on.

     Finally after a year, we were somehow referred to OHSU and Dr. Fukes. Our first visit with the new doc and he was able to tell us...nothing, but he believed Shawn and told us to make another appointment and he would have something for us. A week later we go a phone call, it wasn’t an answer but a kidney function test was ordered this would let us know if the kidney was working right or not. The test came back normal, perfectly normal. Text book perfect even. This did give him an idea, sometimes a kidney can drop, it’s usually happens in really skinny people, woman people that is, so another test was ordered. No sagging dropping kidneys here go figure.

Dr. Fukes said not to worry; at least we know what’s not wrong. Somehow that wasn’t very comforting. This did give him yet another idea, the kidney function is perfect, but there is pain in the kidney. Maybe it’s not in the kidney... Another test was ordered, this time a renal block, a syringe of lidocaine was filled with an 8 hour dose and with the help of CT imaging was guided in to the nerve cluster for the kidney. As soon as the lidocaine drip started the pain went away instantly. 8-9 to a 4-5, hey it’s not a lot but after 9 months of constant debilitating pain a 4-5 is like nothing. The pain stayed away for about 2 weeks before coming back full force; however the pain down into the groin never came back.

     The results from this test lead us to where we are now, facing an auto transplant of the kidney. The surgeon’s determined that the connective tissue and the nerves to the kidney are bad. The theory is that the damage happened from the lithotripsy. Somebody with absolutely no body fat and about as big around as a telephone pole, shouldn’t have had a lithotripsy, let alone two so close together. The auto transplant is the transplantation of your own kidney to the pelvis area. I didn’t know that when one receives a kidney transplant it gets put in the pelvis where the muscles naturally protect the organ, but now I do.

     The surgery is on Monday. We were woken up by a phone call bright and early this morning with phone call and a rundown of what’s going to happen. The surgery will consist of one big incision down the middle of the abdomen and will last about 8 hours of. When Shawn comes out he's going to have a drain tube, urine cath., and pain pump. Inside, going from the kidney to the bladder, will be a stint, I hear those are really uncomfortable I think it’s the part Shawn is least looking forward to. Then a 7-10 day stay in the hospital, and 6-8 weeks of recovery. It will take up to 2 months to know if the surgery is going to work.