One Week

So one thing that has been a little bit of an issue with Joaquin is that his urine output has been a little red - meaning that there is blood in there. That is not uncommon, in fact it is expected with kidney transplant patients (not sure about other types of transplants). It is expected to clear out within the week of transplant, but today Joaquin still had some red outflow. He has had a few times where it wasn't very red, but usually it is red. The doctors are not worried about it, but they wonder what could be causing it: could it be the stitches healing or something else? Well, today one of the pediatricians on the floor came in a talked to us about it and addressed that as being the only real issue with Joaquin at this time because all of his labs have been coming back "great," in her words. I asked her if this is something that could clear up tomorrow or when? And she said that it was something that could clear up in an hour, in a few hours, tomorrow, the next day, in a week... you get the idea. So, I did a little touch therapy on him after this news.

My friend Bobbi taught me a little bit about touch therapy last year when Joaquin was born. I knew that she had studied and knew different types of healing therapies and so when Joaquin was born and I saw what was happening I called her and asked her to come down and visit Joaquin. She saw him and did a little touch therapy on him and taught me how to do it on him myself. It involves envisioning a white healing light around Joaquin and think positive, healing, loving thoughts. Then concentrate on the area in which his kidneys were and using your fingers do circular motions over the kidneys. Do this for around 15 seconds thinking positivity and love and healing. And then afterward, using your hand, sweep your hand over the person just an inch or less above like your are smoothing the energy.

As I was doing this touch therapy on Joaquin, I put a little prayer out there for the bleeding to stop and for the kidney to heal and stay strong. Within the next hour the outflow started clearing up. When I left tonight it was still pretty clear, a little pink tinged, but clear. The nephrology (kidney) doctor who came in near the evening time was very pleased and said that they had just put a call in to the head urologist, Dr. Salvatierra, as to what he thought the problem might be. Go figure, she said. So please pray for that outflow to stay clear and for a healthy, healing kidney.

Chris and I went out to lunch today while Grandma Johnsen (my mama) stayed and played with Joaquin. It was nice to just get away for a little while. We had a chance to talk a little bit about it all. I get emotional when talking about all of this because sometimes it seems to huge and I can't believe that it's happening. It's really hard to wrap your head around the fact that one day, one minute, you had two kidneys, and the next only one. I went to sleep with two kidneys and woke up with one and that one is in my son. Wow. I told him how I sometimes didn't know why I had chosen to do this when everything was going so well. And he made me feel better by just reminding me that while things were good in a sense, but he was still on dialysis and our lives were restricted to a certain degree by this. He talked about how next summer we would be able to go camping and festivals and just travel! Just us and all our stuff - minus the machines.

It made me think about how much our mind set has changed about all of this. When Joaquin was born is was so very hard for me to adjust to the idea of having to give medicines dailyand being on diaylsis every single night, but we adjusted and it became routine And the thought of doing a transplant - well, it just wouldn't happen. I did not want to be giving meds daily for the rest of his life! And now, well, it's not so bad. It's like we have to compromise a little to live more freely. Compromise is not an easy thing to do, adjusting your lifestyle is not easy, and it sure isn't easy when you're on the out looking in. But you just live your life and you do what you have to do. We compromise a life of dialysis and doctors for medicines and doctors. But with a transplant we are not compromising his health anymore by being on dialysis.

Can you believe it's been one week since Joaquin's been off dialysis? It's like August 28th is his second birth - a new life.