After 3 Days of Misery, Now Relief

So the last time I wrote, everything seemed to be cupcakes and rainbows with the transplant. I had hardly any pain and I was up and moving only hours after waking up. Then reality set in. After two great days of putting on make up and being all smiles, things changed. The pain ball that was attached to my incision was removed. So it was just me and the pain. I've been through a lot in the past 9 years. From a lung transplant, to shingles, to getting my gums burned off, to pneumonia, to breaking my arm and recently my leg; you name it, it's seems like I've been through it all. But this was the worst pain I'd ever experienced in my life.

My incision hurt like nothing I'd ever felt before. Any movement of my torso caused extreme pain. It was like someone was twisting a knife into my incision. Getting out of bed to walk to the bathroom was enough to take my breath away to where all I could do was scream. Walking was impossible. The thought of getting out of bed was enough to bring me to tears. I was convinced I had something terribly wrong with me.

After 2 days of this, with the pain only getting worse. We decided something needed to be done. About midnight Saturday night, we got an ultrasound. My new kidney was totally healthy. There was no fluid surrounding it. It was perfect. This brought both relief and confusion. What is wrong?!

On Sunday, we all were at the end of our rope. We begged the doctors for answers. Finally, we have some. During the surgery, muscles and nerves are cut. Swelling is a natural part of surgery, but unfortunately, when you're small, the swelling can be much more uncomfortable. All these cut nerves and tissue are stuck in my tiny tummy and this can cause nerves to press up and crimp against things, which can lead to the extreme pain. So there's a con for being skinny. If you need a kidney, I suggest you get a bit of tummy going. You're gonna need some extra space.

Luckily after lots of trial and error, we finally found a drug that gave me some relief. After morphine, tylenol with codeine, and fentanyl all failed miserably, I met dilaudid. One shot of that in my IV and I was walking, washing my hair, putting on make up. It's a real love story with dilaudid. It seriously saved my sanity. I am hoping to go home tomorrow with the pill form of my new boyfriend. In all seriousness though, I'm hoping to be off the drugs as soon as possible. My doctors say that the swelling will get better every day.

I think I've finally turned the corner, with help from the pain meds. I should be going home tomorrow. I can't wait to hug my little Claire and sleep without being interrupted. I'm finally feeling good. Overall though, this was a great experience. Great doctors, expert surgeons, and a loving family around me to deal with all my moodiness. I cannot wait to rejoin society healthy and happy. I'm so grateful for everyone's prayers, support, flowers, and sweet treats! There's so much love in my life, it's crazy and I'm truly in awe of it.

End Stage Renal Failure: The Season Finale

I'm sitting here in ICU. And it's done. And so the hard work begins. The surgery is the easy part for me, especially with how sick I've been. I mean, I got propofol. How exciting is that?! If it's good enough for Michael Jackson, I'll take it! I didn't have any psychedelic Colt McCoy National Title themed fantasies, which was disappointing. But I do have a morphine button that can dispense some pain relieving greatness every five minutes so things kind of evened out.

I'm no longer nauseated. My stomach doesn't feel like it's turning inside out. I'm not exhausted and I'm not freezing cold. My hemoglobin has gone from 7 to 9.5 already. My incision hurts but you can't make a salmon frittata without breaking a few eggs, am i right?

The love and support I have seen has been truly overwhelming, in a good way! I want to be sure to take the time to thank of each of you individually for sending me such positivity and showing such respect for me in this really hard time.

I have an uphill trek ahead but I'm so excited about what the view from the top will be. Please continue to pray for me, for my Aunt Cheryl and for all the doctors and nurses. Thank you, from the bottom of my heart! Love, Mary and her new kidney

Let's Do the Damn Thing

In terms of tomorrow, I'm not scared. I'm just really ready to get this over with. I want to get in, get out, and involve as few people as possible. This is nothing against all the wonderful people who love me and have been concerned for me. This has a lot more the do with the fact that the hospital turns me into a mood fourteen year old. All the sudden terms like "no one understands me!" and "why does everything happen to me!?" seem to spew out along with plenty of tears. So you can imagine why in the middle of a meltdown I wouldn't want some well meaning visitor to walk in... AWKWARD! Not to mention I'll have a central line coming out of neck, a little tidbit I learned today.

I'm not totally anti-visitor. But if you get turned away, I apologize in advance. I don't mean to be such a mess!

My biggest fear is disappointment. I'm pinning all my hopes and dreams for the future on this transplant. I worry I'm going to feel better, but not a lot better. But worrying doesn't help anything. So, I'm trying not to do it and just trying to get excited about getting drugs tomorrow.

I'm sure I'll be back texting everyone and back on Facebook in no time. I'll talk to ya'll real soon.

With Just a Few Days Left

Preparing for surgery is very similar to preparing for a trip. Though my destination is neither fun nor exotic, I still needed to get my life together. Some people have to get their financial things in order, bills paid, and such. Other people maybe like to have some sort of special gathering or have heart to hearts with all their close friends. Well, I've never been one for serious stuff. However, there were still some important things weighing on my minds.

For one thing, my Halloween costume. I know, it's September. But in Austin, there's only one place to get your costume. The creme de la creme of costume shops: Lucy's in Disguise with Diamonds on South Congress. My first year, I was fortunate enough to see Andy Roddick and stand right next to him while at the cash register. Though I have yet to reunite with Andy, I still go to Lucy's every year. The problem is that if you wait til mid-October, half of Austin is there and it's impossible to move around freely let alone find something in your size. I'm gonna be out of commission for the next few weeks. And once I can get back to running errands, I doubt Lucy's is going to be my first stop. So, it was important to go before my surgery. For the record, I settled on sexy schoolgirl this year.

Then there's the priority of football. I will be missing the UTEP game. I wish I could say I was at every game this year when we all look back at our National Title trek to Pasadena. But at least I have a pretty good excuse. I didn't want to be depressed about missing the game or even more importantly, tailgating. So, I decided to get my fill this week and tailgate for about 12 hours. Arriving at the tailgate spot before sunrise for a 7 pm game was not the wisest decision I'd ever made. It's hard to keep that stamina when you're healthy, let alone ill. By the time we had destroyed Texas Tech and gotten back home free of raider rash, it was midnight. I felt like passing out and throwing up all at the same time. Luckily I was able to drag myself upstairs and into bed. A good 12 hours of sleep later, I felt a little better. I don't think I'll ever recover fully though. And the good news is that not being able to tailgate this week is A-Okay with me now. In fact, if someone told me I had to redo yesterday all over again tomorrow, I'd probably cry. However, I will be sad to miss the game, especially Colt and Jordan (did you know they're roommates?). I just need to make sure the hospital gets Fox Sports. Oh and if you are reading and were planning to visit on Saturday, you can reconsider that now. That goes for doctors, nurses, and random techs who wander in wanting to weigh me for the 3rd time.

Besides that, I don't know what else there is to do, besides of course, setting my DVR to record all my favorite shows. Like I said, I'm trying to compare it to going on a 5 day vacay. The trip just went really bad and I somehow ended up in the hospital. I don't even remember how. See, that's not so scary.

Things I have been doing that have kept me from Blogging

• baking
• decorating
• breaking things
• surviving ikea trips
• eating at kerbey lane
• becoming addicted to hbo
• reading books
• drinking coffee bean
• being everyone's new favorite sober driver
• feeling way too old at frat parties
• going to alamo drafthouse
• tailgating
• searching for pretty eyeshades
• mix 94.7 90's weekend
• 5 free wing coupons
• disputes with our apartment company
• watching OU continue to suck
• making my bed every day
• writing threatening notes to the people parking in my reserved spot
• twittering
• joining the pragertopia podcast so i never miss the male/female hour
• watching Texas come out with a glorious win: 59-20! 1 down, 11 to go!

So, in this case, no news is good news. I keep myself rested. I feel no anxiety about the coming weeks ahead. I feel little symptoms of my disease at the moments I do feel bad come and go quickly. I have overwhelming feelings of nausea that tend to come on quickly and without warning. But laying down for half an hour and closing my eyes usually leaves me feeling good as new. No medication needed. The biggest problem is feeling short of breath with the slightest exertion due to my worsening anemia. This wouldn't be a big problem except I don't want to slow down. If I was okay with never getting up or going anywhere, I probably wouldn't even notice it. But since I don't want to miss any of what is now Junior year 2.0, it's just a side effect I'll have to deal with. And sometimes it's okay to slow down. But for the most part, it's not something I intend to do! Consider no news good news! Love love love.