Day by Day

A mama blogs the journey to transplant and beyond...

Thursday, August 28, 2008

Happy 2 Year Kidney Anniversary!!!

Today two years ago I was in a pretty drugged up groggy state having just had one of my kidneys removed and placed into my 14 month old son, Joaquin. At that point in my life the future was kind of dark and uncertain since undergoing that kind of operation is never without risks. Would we make it to two years? I didn't know but I really, really hoped and prayed a lot about it. Turns out we did. Going into the transplant I felt good about it - I didn't figure there would be any problems. Joaquin's aunt Dawn said something to me around the time of Joaquin's birth and kidney failure diagnoses, she said that she had a feeling of peace that everything would be alright. It was one of those moments of fleeting clarity where I knew and felt that too.

So now we are two years post-transplant. After Joaquin's transplant I stopped worrying so much about how he compared to his peers, I felt a sense of peace in the midst of the post-transplant storm. Instead, after the transplant I felt like finally we were moving forward instead of just waiting in limbo. Watching Joaquin thrive made it feel like it had been the right choice after all. It's like we finally exhaled.

Joaquin doesn't really understand the whole transplant deal yet - we talked a bit about it today and he gets the gist of it. Mom took her kidney out and gave it to him. Some day he'll have a better grasp on what exactly that means. To me it's not a big deal and would rather have the spotlight off of me in these days because I am just so thankful and humbled by all the powers that be who watched over us and all the prayers and support we received. It's such an intensely scary thing to have to go through but all of the people who kept up in their thoughts and prayers really helped to bring us through to the other side. So we thank you, again, from the bottom of our hearts. We love you all.

I put together a little montage of our experience up to date for your viewing pleasure.

Tuesday, August 12, 2008

Health and Happiness



We love summer around here. What I especially like about summer is the lack of sickness. Yeah, I here about someone catching something here or there but over all it's just a time of year when the colds and flus are far and few in between. *Knock on wood* we haven't had any sickness this summer. I think the last time that Joaquin was sick was in February or March when we all dealt with a flu bug of some sort. Now that we don't have the ng tube anymore I'm hoping that we'll skate through this winter without pneumonia or any major illnesses. I do expect the colds but one big cause of Joaquin's upper respiratory illnesses were because of the ng. We were told this by numerous doctors.

Nana and Papa were up visiting this past weekend. They are always lured up here by the prospects of not only seeing the grandchildren, but it's also Hot August Nights here - which means lots of cools cars. Grandpa, Joaquin, Sage and I walked downtown one early afternoon to check the cars out. It's still pretty hot here so we didn't spend a whole lot of time there but Joaquin did enjoy himself. We spent some time with Chris's sister and brother-in-law while his parents were in town. He and his cousin Aiden (Chris's nephew) are at a great age where they play so well together. Cousin Aiden is way into Batman and all sorts of superheros and Joaquin loves to play along.

Joaquin's thing right now is "Cars" the movie and just cars in general. He likes to run and pretend he's a car complete with the car noises and everything. He's also an avid reader - we read lots of Berenstein Bears book as well as Mercer Mayer's books.

Life without the ng has been great! We haven't had to put it back in since Sage took it out, although we have had to put the threat on the table when he's not being cooperative about drinking his water. That doesn't happen very often, thankfully. He's getting less and less resistant to drinking what he needs to during the day. There are those days where it's like pulling teeth but we always manage to get all he needs. It's nice to have him drink all his water in the day, that way he's not getting it over night and soaking his clothes and the sheets. This would happen usually every night. The other night he fell asleep and I hadn't put a pull-up on him and forgot to until it was morning and we were waking up. I asked him if he was wet and he said no. Sure enough, he wasn't and got up right away to use the bathroom. So much change for Joaquin since he's turned three - it's like the big boy golden age or something.

Sage is doing well too. He's standing and cruising around. He's cautious about walking on his own but I think that's his Virgo nature. We anticipate those first steps any day. His first words were "dada" and "mama" (which sounds more like, "mooma"), but his first officiall word besides the usual was "ball". He likes to say it often. He's also pointing and identifying objects like when I asked him where la bella luna (moon) was he looked to the sky where she was and pointed. The developmental changes that just seem to come from no where never cease to amaze me.

Our summer is winding down but we've had lots of fun. We don't have much of anything else on the agenda for the rest of it except more bbq's and swimming!

patio furniture store
patio furniture store