Y’all this is the real story. Not the Houston Chronical, make it sound like a fairy tale version.
My sister needed a kidney. Her kidneys had died due to liver failure and she had undergone a liver transplant. The liver was rocking right along so we figured (with all our vast medical knowledge combined) that if she got a kidney while she was doing good she would recover better and it would be the safest for the liver. Generally that’s not how you get a kidney. You wait on a list based on a score. The sicker you get the higher the score. That sounded risky to the liver. So we decided the only way to get one now was to have a direct donation from a living donor. So I volunteered to be tested.
I went for day 1. I was there all day and I was fasting. SIGH. Not my favorite day. I had a psych eval (which I passed thank you very much) and blood draw. Not like a little tube of blood. 40 little tubes of blood and they stuck me like 4 or 5 times to be able to get it all. My suggestion for improving this process would be to draw the blood first then allow the donor to eat. Perhaps we would do better on the psych evals that way. Just Saying!!
Some weeks later I went for day 2. I don’t even know what all we did. EKG’s, more blood work, chest x-rays, some kind of urine output test. It was a looooooong day.
Then my sister got sick. We couldn’t proceed. So we waited. FOR A YEAR. Finally she was well enough to consider the kidney. And all I need to do is day 3, right? Nope. All of my test had expired. So I started all over. Except this time I brought snacks.
During this year I had started to seriously date Doug. He was not a fan of this whole thing. He had both valid and ridiculous concerns. Ranging from how long I might be in the hospital to how this could impact my future health. Nothing I could say was going to make going voluntarily under the knife a good idea for his beloved. But I am stubborn and head strong and loyal to my siblings. (For real you better leave them alone because I will stab you) So I was not moved by Doug’s concerns. I had decided.
I began planning our wedding and my kidney donation at the same time. Determined to do both in the span of a few weeks. The wedding was set for May 23 and the kidney donation July 6. I took off a week for our honeymoon and worked OT like crazy to be ready for July with no paycheck. I got all my paperwork in order. Things were going smoothly…until I got a call from our HR department. My FMLA had been denied. Excuse me? Because I did not need surgery. It was elective. No FMLA. I FREAKED OUT!! They told me I could have FMLA to be her caregiver while she is dying but not to save her life. This was Montgomery County (Tx) Hospital District. The place responsible for the indigent care of the county citizens. The EMS service with the motto “We make a difference”. I can run 15 911 calls a shift and save those lives but I cannot take off work to save my sisters life? My supervisor was equally unimpressed. He went to HR to discuss options on my behalf. I called attorneys. For $50 an attorney called our HR department and requested the appropriate e-mails and addresses to send legal paperwork to concerning my FMLA case (which did not exist). And my supervisor begged for HR to revisit this and reminded them how this could be a PR mess. And presto I was granted FMLA. Crisis averted.
Next thing you know we got married and the transplant was the next thing on the calendar. The night before we went to Houston and stayed in a hotel near the hospital. I had to be there at 4 am and it’s a 2 hour drive from my house. I’d LOVE to know why I needed to be there at 4am. We signed in and waited in a waiting room until we got old. Then I went to pre-op, where we got even older. Then family was allowed into pre-op with us. At this point we had all aged about 10 years. I don’t remember feeling nervous. I saw my surgeon, who remembered to not mess up my belly button piercing. I saw my anesthesiologist, who graciously agreed to keep my Capno at 30 rather than 35 but rolled his eyes at me and made a snide remark about paramedics being the worst patients. So I rolled my eyes at him but also smiled good naturedly because he was about to intubate me. (With a 6.5 as I instructed because I don’t want a sore throat #reasonable). I don’t know why he thought I was difficult. Then some super nice liar came in and said “Ok its time. I’m going to give you a tiny bit of fentanyl and versed to relax you. It won’t knock you out or anything. Just help you chill.” I don’t know what kind of heavy weights he is accustom to relaxing but I don’t remember another thing. I was out! Very very chilled. #notcomplainigjustsaying
So up too this point thing went just fine. Now the fun starts. I wake up post surgery and my first thought is “I need to find Doug” So I sit up. This was very upsetting to the nurses as they began swarming and insisting I “stay in bed” and “lay back down”. I’m begging for Doug. Someone assures me he is on his way right now and that makes me lay down. Doug is coming so I’m fine now. Oh wait, no I’m not. The realization of the pain hit me. Dear lord, I could use another tic tac of fentanyl guys. I start crying. I want Doug. I am hurting. I want to get up. I start to panic. And just as I really start getting cranked up Doug appears. My very favorite memory ever. Doug rubs my head and talks me down and my world is right. Doug is here so I do not need to worry about pain meds, drug dosages, or my beeping capno. He’s going to handle it. Doug needed a break I guess so he stopped rubbing my head. I hit the panic button. Head rubbing restarts. Poor Doug leaned over my bed for 4 hours rubbing my head so I would stay in bed. It’s a wonder he isn’t permanently bent over. You girls marry someone who will do this for you. I was also allowed to have visitors in this post-op state. Which is horrible. I was not in a visiting mood. I remember telling Cade to stop the visitors. I don’t know what Cade did but the visitors kept coming. Eventually Doug and my nurse put a stop to it. No offense you guys but I wanted a dark hole not a friendly chat.
Eventually I am released to a real room. I’m now fully awake, very tired, worried about Diana, and in pain. The train of well-meaning visitors continues. I’m not allowed to eat. I’m unhappy and unpleasant and suddenly have no visitors. Crazy how that happens.
Doug did not sleep well the night before surgery and he worked the day before that. And surgery was emotionally hard on him. So he was exhausted. He passed out on the chair/bed beside me and slept like a rock. Honestly I have no clue how he slept through my fit throwing but he did.
My overnight nurse might have been a medical genius but her bedside manor was a D minus at best and her English was a solid F. She would not give me pain meds because my BP was in the 80’s and 90’s systolic and my heartrate was 48/49. Let me add that the limit on the HR monitor to stop the annoying as hell beeping is 50. At 49 alarms go off. The answer to this problem is to yank off the leads. Then the nurse comes in squalking like a chicken and I can demand pain meds or something. It’s now after midnight and my last pain meds were about noon. I cried all night. The nurse told me if I eat my jello my heart rate will go up. I asked if she laced it with atropine. She looks at me like I might be stupid. I start ranting about how we carry room temp red jello on the ambulance for people with bradycardia. She is convinced I’m crazy. I eat the nasty red jello. My heart rate is 46. IT WENT DOWN!! I can’t sleep because of the beeping and alarming and the pain. I’m a 10 of 10. She refused to get a Dr on the phone or in my room. The house sup never showed up. And then there it was. I tiny glow of sunlight through the window. Shift change was on the horizon. And my darling husband had slept enough. I hurl things off my tray and him and shout his name. (Yes we have been married 6 weeks and were still honeymooners. Don’t judge me. I was in distress). He gets up. I fill him in on the things he missed while sleeping the deep slumber of someone with 2 kidneys and a slightly faster heart rate. Also my mother has had enough sleep. I call her. Mom: Good morning. Me: Get. Up. Here. Even in my emotional state I was not brave enough to order my mother around so I quickly add a please and get off the phone.
My husband is now in full go mode. He realizes I have had it and there is about to be a rebellion. He darts into the hallway and announces loudly to both shifts of nurses in 12 seconds we are removing the foley catheter without their help! Like magic a nurse I haven’t seen yet runs in. He is surprised by my distress. I tell him I want this out right now and that I am leaving. He tells me the is not my nurse but he will find my nurse and that whatever is wrong they can fix it, and he removes the catheter. I get dressed. Jeans, shoes, bra… the whole bit. I’m out y’all. I’ve had red jello and no pain meds. Diana had fried chicken and a morphine pump. None of this was discussed in my pre-op appointments.
As if they knew there was a ruckus the transplant team arrives and tells me I’ll be staying one more night and then should be just fine to go home. I throw back the covers to reveal that I am dressed all the way down to my converse. I inform them that I am not their prisoner and I am going home. NOW. I shant be enduring another night of beeping, screaming monitors because my heart needs one more beet per minute. And if this hospital was planning to give me zero pain meds I would drug myself. I have Benadryl and Phenergan and I know where Caney Creek mobile home park is and Karen has the good stuff. Bet me if you think I won’t! The doctor handed over a Rx for hydrocodone and the nurse got discharge papers. My mother, who is an amazing and awesome mother decided to check on my sister first and did not rush to my bedside. I think she was aware of my attitude and current state and thought she might passive aggressively avoid it. My Mother in law got me a hotel room next door and I made a run for it. I got in bed at the hotel and I got my heart right with the lord because I was pretty sure this was it for me. I don’t know what or how much I took but I slept.
Doug brought me home the next day and I recovered on the couch the next 6 weeks. At about 3 weeks maybe 4 weeks out I thought I was doing good enough to run a 5k. Here it is in print. Doug was right. I was wrong. That was a truly horrible idea.
My firemen sent me an edible arrangement which tells you how well they know me. Flowers? No we have to feed her. I love you guys.
NCIS became my close knit friend group. I watched the whole thing. All 16 seasons.
I have no regrets. I did gain some weight and get my athletic body, heart rate and blood pressure up. Just in case I need another surgery one day. I don’t want my healthy, skinny girl HR to scare them out of giving me pain meds. And I don’t want to tell another nurse her HR is normally 90 because she’s fat. I was kick boxing 4 times a week the year before and was working out every day leading up to surgery. My HR and BP was healthy!
In all honesty if you are fatter than I was at that time you will be fine. I do not regret a moment of it. It was worth every day my sister was not on a dialysis machine. It was worth every moment she lived a normal life. I would do it again. But I would do it fatter. I mean ask Doug. His story was way better. Mr Morphine over there. If I donated today I'd get a way better deal! LOL!
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