Hopeful

Tomorrow my parents are driving down here and Chris is leaving to go back to work. They will be bringing the equipment along so that I can upload photos to the blog. I really like having the pictures accompanying the entry, but oh well.

We were discharged from the hospital on Wednesday night. We pretty much knew Tuesday night that Thursday would be the day, but our experience from previous hospitalizations let us know that it wouldn't probably happen until later in the day since everything moves slow as molasses around there. So we physically left the hospital at around 6 p.m. Joaquin was very excited about leaving, he had been asking about going home for a while but we had told him that we weren't going home and that we were going to the Ronald McDonald House. There's lots of fun stuff to do around here so he's not to upset about not being at home.

We decided to do the shots, versus the PICC line. The shots, while not pleasant, are do-able and much less invasive then the whole PICC line experience. When Chris took him to the day hospital, the nurses were asking why we didn't do the PICC line. We just can't believe how basic and simple they make it sound. Sure, lets put him under and surgically place a PICC line! Easy! No big deal! I digress.

On Thursday before we left, Dr. Weintraub came in and talked with us for over and hour. I was so appreciative of that. We got to sit and pick her brain and ask her questions and just talk in general about kidney transplant. It's what we sorely needed. Both the doctors and we feel like communication lines were in desperate need of attention and mending. There were many assumptions made about Joaquin's care on both ends. We've finally cleared most of them up and I'll discuss in another thread exactly hat I mean and what happened. I think we may have had a very scary, dismal outlook on what transplant is but after talking with her, I feel much more hopeful about Joaquin's kidney's future.

We now understand that we can expect his kidney to (hopefully, if all continues to go well) last for 20+ years. She was saying that he's in this era of transplant where in a sense kidney transplant is pretty common, whereas the previous generations were steroid based and before that a very radical, extreme measure. Basically a last ditch effort at saving someone's life and that in the 1960's and 1970's people's whole immune systems were irradiated and that once their immune systems recovered they had a 50% chance of losing the kidney. She was saying that by the time that Joaquin's kidney's life expectancy is up, they might be able to take a little of his blood and grow him a new kidney where he wouldn't have to take anti-rejection medicines and we wouldn't have to be fearful of losing his kidney to rejection.

The fact that Joaquin had a transplant so young is actually an advantage to him. They statistically see that children under 5 have very low chances of kidney rejection. They aren't quite sure, but feel that somehow and young child's immune system hasn't, in a sense, fully realized what belongs to their body and what doesn't. Whereas a person who is 50 and their body has fully realized what belongs in the body and what doesn't. He's also got the advantage of receiving not only a living kidney, but a relative and his mother's kidney.

We are always so scared of him losing his kidney. When I go to the emergency room after Chris had taken him in, I had brought along his transplant manual that we are supposed to bring everywhere. I rushed in and started talking about his kidney and the doctor stopped me and basically said that while they were aware of the fact that he had a kidney transplant, it was secondary if not tertiary to the fact that he was having seizures. He had to actually explain this to me a few times before I understood that we were not dealing with just his kidney and that his kidney was not the cause of this nor would it necessarily be affected by this. I understood this finally and said to the doctor that I was sorry, but that our whole world was his kidney. He understood me. I calmed down.

So yesterday we went to Santa Cruz and visited the ocean for the first time since June when Joaquin and I made the trip out there with our cousins Brenda and Gina. It's always such a healing experience. It was Sage's first trip to the ocean.

Tomorrow we look forward to going to the farmer's markets around town and they are having "Art from the Heart" here at the Ronald McDonald House, which I am really looking forward to. We will be painting.

So with the next post and update, expect pictures! Thank you for reading and listening and for all your love and support.