Mind you, I actually meant to write this post a week ago at what would’ve been the six-week mark, but what can I say? Despite being off of work and not having any real responsibilities other than recover, I just didn’t have the time. Or something…
Anywho, seven weeks ago today, I had my kidney transplant and overall, things have been going pretty great!
My labs have shown continual improvement, to the point where I skipped ahead a lot in how often I had to visit the clinic for follow-ups last month, with me just last week switching from weekly appointments to bi-weekly appointments where I can get my lab work done a few miles from my house instead of driving all the way downtown on my off weeks. It’s also been nice that the last two or three follow-ups had my doctors saying, “It’s doing the best that it has so far!” for multiple weeks in a row!
We’ve changed my meds a little bit, but nothing too crazy. At one point I had a bit of a tremor in my hands as a result of my Tacrolimus level being a little too high, but we lowered my dosage and it went away pretty quick.
I also had to deal with some drama between pharmacies because apparently my insurance wants me to fill certain meds with their pharmacy to save money instead of just letting the Transplant Clinic fill everything, and that was a pain to sort out … but it’s done now.
For those who enjoy stats like me, here’s what a couple of my key lab results have looked like since my surgery…
Creatinine is a waste product in your blood from the processing of protein and regular muscle breakdown, which is why people with kidney issues have to limit the amount of protein we consume because our kidneys aren’t doing a good job of filtering it out anymore. Dialysis does a little better, but remember that dialysis is a few times a week for a few hours a day (12 hours/week total for me) whereas healthy kidneys are normally working 24×7.
GFR is a measure for overall kidney function and one of the main determining factors in how far along one’s kidney disease has progressed as well as when it’s necessary to begin dialysis. I believe I started when my GFR fell below 10, and now you can see that it’s steadily improving compared to this chart below:
So lab-wise, I’m doing great, and quite frankly, physically I’m feeling pretty good, too! The fatigue I felt in my weeks after surgery has mostly subsided and my pain is mostly reduced some acute pain when I roll over on my kidney side in bed. I do have some numbness in my right thigh below where they had to cut through a bunch of nerves, which I’m told could heal in six months or not, so we’ll see on that one.
As for my scars, they’ve basically all closed up to the point where I was actually able to go swimming with the boys for the first time in, like, two years, which I’m super happy about because it’s something that I’ve really been missing! It does take a little extra effort standing up because I think I’ve lost a fair bit of muscle along the way, plus my existing kidney are pretty heavy … but it sounds like we’re going to deal with them sometime next year, so that’ll be a relief once those monstrosities are out of my body for good!
I’ve slowly starting pushing myself to exercise just a little, mainly consisting of laps around our loop in the neighborhood in the evenings. It’s not much, but I’m not really supposed to do anything more than walking anyways, so I figure if I can do a little at a time each day, that’s pretty good given the circumstances.
Last week I also got my stent removed that ran from my new kidney to my bladder. It was not fun and I do not recommend through the penis as a method to remove things from the body! But by the end of the weekend, my urination sensitivity had settled down back to normal, so now I’m peeing an appropriate amount, but not RIGHT NOW like my body had been otherwise demanding of me to some less than savory results…
So in summary, things are going really, really well, and from what I’ve heard the same goes for my donor, so that’s good. I’m at the point where I honestly don’t really think about it most of the time, so the new kidney has done a good job of assimilating with my other organs despite being the reason why everything is more cramped in there than it was a couple of months ago!
It’s been slow and steady, but I’m trying to use this recovery time to make some changes that I’ve needed in my life – we’ll go into all of that another day – but for now I’ll just say that it’s been refreshing to be able to focus my attention on the things and people that I truly care about, and in a way I do look at this period as sort of a new outlook on life with opportunities aplenty. My life is worth it, and now seems like as good a time as any to act on those impulses…
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