Finally

Today was a much better day for us - I didn't feel like writing yesterday because I was feeling so negative and I felt like the last two entries were negative enough. We had a clinic appointment today and while I don't dread going to them, I'm certainly not excited about them. I don't know why but clinic appointments have always upset me, just ask Chris. Rarely was there an appointment when we were doing dialysis where I wasn't emotional all the way down and back. But I'm an emotional person as it is on top of the fact that I was so sure that his kidney was going to work and we weren't going to need to do dialysis anymore or go through with the transplant. So every time we went down and there was no change and his kidneys still weren't working... well, it was very hard on me. I think that if Joaquin's one kidney wasn't working at all or if he was urinating at all - then I wouldn't have had such a hard time with everything and with the decision to transplant.

But as the saying goes: hindsight is 20/20 and even two and a half weeks post transplant I'm beginning to see that Joaquin's kidney may have been doing something, but it more more close to nothing than anything. Thankfully it did something, though, because he peed so he could drink all the water he wanted and his body is used to urinating. Some of the mothers who have kidney kids that I have spoke always ask what it was like to have a wet diaper to change since their babies never peed.

Back to the appointment today - Dr. Sarwal, yet another of the rotating renal doctors that we deal with but one who I am beginning to like more and more, started telling us today that she thought it would be best for us to wait to have the catheter removed until Monday. Her reasoning for this was that it was a Friday and most of the renal doctors and team members are off on the weekends and in the unlikely event that something should not go as planned with the procedure tomorrow, we would be dealing with an on-call doctor, or "skeleton crew" as she put it. She would be off tomorrow, Cathy would be off, as well as Dr. Concepcion. Thankfully the appointment was made for 8:30 in the morning so that most of the renal team with be there until at least 5:00pm.

Now, I could have really gotten upset and I felt myself going there but I understand her reasoning for wanting to hold off until Monday. I was very calm about it for some reason. I want what it best for Joaquin - but, they also need to consider the fact that every minute, hour, day that the catheter is left in place is more opportunity for it to become infected, pulled on, pulled out... As I was telling her, I don't feel like it's purely my selfish reasonings for wanting it out, there are legitimate reasons why we don't want it to remain in. There's also a stent in his ureter that they will remove at the same time. But we've always been told that his catheter was to be pulled two week post transplant and if we held out until Monday it would be three weeks post transplant. Dr. Sarwal said that it was likely that nothing would go wrong and everything would go smoothly, but that it's her job to warn us of the risks.

She also asked us why it hadn't been taken out on Monday like it was had originally been planned to and I explained that the hospital was full that day and that "someone" had said that it was to come out Wednesday and that we felt as though "someone" forgot to make the appointment and so it got bumped out until Friday. Dr. Sarwal said that it's never a good idea to do a procedure that will involve monitoring on a Friday since everyone is off for the weekend and that she will have to speak to the team about scheduling appointments for that day. Amy, the transplant nurse, said, "Cathy was in charge of making the appointments." So I feel like while I didn't name any names, Cathy will probably receive some sort of indirect reprimand and that just makes me smile on the inside.

So we are scheduled to be at the PACU (not sure what that stands for) at 7:00 in the morning - an hour and a half before the appointment. Joaquin will receive anestesia that will put him under for around 5 minutes, the sutures will be snipped, the tube will be pulled and then they will flush it three time with an antibiotic solution and the third will be left in the bladder so that it will be urinated out through the penis thereby flushing out any little bugs that might be hanging around. Then they will just need to monitor him for about three hours to make sure that he's peeing enough. After that we will be free to go for lunch or just leave the hospital for a while, then we will come back for an ultrasound at 3:30pm to make sure the kidney is still doing good, have some more blood drawn and wait around for a doctor to view it and get the okay to leave from him/her. And then we are free to go. So it will be a full day, but well worth it.

As for me, I am doing much better. We have been going on daily walks and every day I can go a little farther and not tire out. I'm able to sleep on my tummy and on my side that does not have the incision. I'm feeling like I'm getting back to where I was before the surgery. I'm including a picture of the incision as per requested by my Dad. Please don't mind the belly - my muscles haven't fully healed so I can't suck in my gut!!