Knittinggarden

I was scheduled for my post-op visit with the transplant donor team last Thursday.  All my helpers had left by Monday night and I had asked my sister to come back Wednesday evening and stay over so she could drive me in early Thursday morning.  Well, we had horrible heavy rain Tuesday and Wednesday, so I told her I could make it on my own. I made it fine; there wasn't any rain so the normal awful traffic wasn't made any worse.  The extra person for the carpool lane would have helped but the trip wasn't too bad.  Then the keystone cops  part of the visit started.  Normally, the clinic days at the transplant center work on schedule.  You go for labs, you go to your appointments.  They put you into a room and the doctor, nurse, coordinator, pharmacist, etc. comes to you.  It's kind of a round robin experience. Something was mixed up last week, though, and I had to wait quite a long time and then my appointments were mixed up.  The funny...

for a little bit of knitting which is also political commentary. You probably noticed that I mentioned knitting Pussyhats  in the last couple of weeks.  I know I was knitting one before I went into surgery and worked on it some more afterwards.  Note:  I'm sure this was the hat that I messed up and had to do over but that probably would have happened without simultaneous drugs and pain.  Anyway, I ended up with four hats.  The process of knitting them was interesting and I tweaked the pattern every time, so kept a little bit of interest up.  They also came out totally different sizes due to adjustments in needle size and how much yarn I had.  Whatever!  I finally finished. My sister planned to go to the Womxn's March in Seattle so I managed to finish up the hats in time to meet up with her following my post-op appointment on Thursday.  I'll tell you how that went next time.  See how I keep you coming back? I, of course, wa...

Good Monday to everyone!  I'm feeling better every day although I had  a rough day last week, but decided that it was the pain medication/laxative combo to blame and I cut those out.  I still, of course, have a long way to go to heal up, but bruises are fading and I'm feeling stronger.  The areas around the incisions are still sensitive but getting better all the time. Saturday the Princess and I planned for a few visitors, but were mostly planning to watch the Seahawks (lose, boo!) and nap, which was working fine for us most days.  Instead, we had Grandma, Grandpa, Julie, Robin, and our local kids with the grandbaby, who kindly provided lunch.  The nice little visit was progressing when the front door opened and in walked Mr Hollywood, which was a total surprise.  I've been so blessed to have the great company and care of my sister and my Princess, but having all the kids here together to see me was such a boost!  The out-of-towners are leaving...

I am not known for my patience. Like most, I want to do what I want when I want to. Waiting, although made tolerable by knitting, isn't high on my list of favorite things. Sitting back and enjoying a journey, while sometimes amazing, isn't my usual preference. That brings us to the current situation. My right kidney, as far as I know, is comfortably ensconced in its new home and working away as always. My good old left kidney is wrapped up in business as usual, cradled in its usual spot. The rest of my abdominal cavity is pretty much a wreck.  I don't want it to be a wreck. I want to be back to normal. That being said, every day my improvement is stellar.  For a few days before surgery, every time I got out of bed, propped myself up, or rolled over, I thought "I won't be doing this again for a long time."  But I am!  A little gingerly, but better every day.  I even slept on my side for awhile last night.  It had been too painful before to even turn over...

I talked the doctors into letting me come home last night. My insides aren't yet fully awake but I convinced them that I can manage that here in the comfort of my own house. Everyone at the hospital (with maybe one exception) was kind and caring and great but it was a hospital after all. It turned out to be lucky that we had to wait an extra hour or so for my meds since there was a fire in a house down the road from us and our driveway was blocked by fire hoses until shortly before we drove in.  Small mercies! I don't think it resulted in any casualties so could have been worse. I'm glad this is over and everyone is on the mend. Thanks for all the thoughts, good wishes and prayers. I appreciate my sister's help and care more than she will ever know and apologize in advance for how cranky I'm going to be.  That being said, I really do feel like shit. 

Wednesday was the longest day ever, but we're both here to tell about it. We left the house at 5:30 am to drive to the hospital. My dear sister spent the night, drove us in, then fetched, carried and accompanied us through the long hours. Pat's son was here as well. When we arrived, we had a short interview with the hospital's media guy. This is the first time a local, four person transplant exchange has been done at this hospital and there'll be some publicity about it after we all recover. Then it was hurry up and wait. My surgery was first so I was taken to the pre-op area and prepared. We looked pretty good to start with. The next thing I knew, I was in recovery minus one kidney. My sister accompanied me to my regular room when it was time. I tend to get very nauseated from anesthesia and/or pain meds and this was no exception. I didn't feel too bad on the whole.  We waited a long time to hear about Pat. The donor kidney wasn't read...

Check in time for me is 6:45 am.  And here I am at 10:30 pm drinking water.  I'm supposed to drink 2 liters of fluid between 8pm and midnight and it takes a long time to do that.  Plus I'm not really worried about sleeping; after all that liquid, who will be able to stay in bed? Surgery is imminent, we are ready.  There are some nerves and worry about the aftermath of the surgery but on the whole I'm very optimistic and ready to be done.  The medical and surgical teams are great, the hospital is excellent, we are in good hands. Today was cold and sunny and we got to go for a walk.  Life is good and going to be better.  I appreciate all the support and encouragement we've received and the help we'll get for the next couple of weeks.  See you on the flip side!

The first day of 2017 and it's now just a hop, skip, and a jump to surgery.  We are excited but nervous; hoping that the advice of "you'll feel like you got hit by a truck on Thursday" is a gross exaggeration. Neither one of us has had major abdominal surgery before and we know it won't be a walk in the park but we're both strong and healthy and are expecting to have good results and smooth recoveries. We realized today that next Sunday we'll be watching football in separate places with brand new scars on our tummies.  Something to look forward to! I wanted to share a link on here in case anyone reading here is interested.  We have set up a donation page at the Northwest Kidney Centers and hope to raise some money for their education fund.  Diabetes is one of the most common reasons for kidney failure and in a lot of cases it is avoidable or reversible with lifestyle changes.  The Kidney Center does a lot of education on diet and exercise choices that ...

After we successfully made it home, we got up bright and early the next day and left the house by 6:00 AM.  We needed to be at the UWMC lab at 7:30 and we live an hour away not counting traffic and rain, of which there is always some.  Pat had more appointments than I did, so I tagged along with him until I had to be somewhere else. We both supplied blood and urine samples, then went to the Cardiology Center, where he needed another Echocardiogram.  When you're on the transplant list or being screened for the transplant, they want to make sure that the organ is going to a person who has other healthy systems; i.e., heart and lungs.  So  Pat has had CTs, ultrasounds, cardiograms, etc. every year and it was suddenly decided that since his last one was last spring, another one was necessary.  They squeezed it into our busy schedule of appointments. It was interesting for me to watch (I don't think he could see anything) as the test is essentially an ultras...

In addition to having to get our acts together to leave town with little notice, we found an opportunity to rent our condo for a couple of months during our absence.  This meant that we would need to reorganize and move a lot of the stuff we've been leaving there out of closets and cupboards so renters will have space for their stuff.  Scrambling commenced and we got windows washed, carpet cleaned, closets emptied, garage tidied, and new dining table finished and set up (and old one gone.)  We also had to pack up the stuff we wanted to take home with us (the car might never have been so full and heavy.)  Pat had his final dialysis in the desert early on Friday morning, I went to my final exercise class and we were ready to leave a little after noon.  It was actually a bit rainy, so there were rainbows galore that morning. Our original plan was always to drive to Vegas this weekend to attend the UNLV graduation.  Our SIL, Mike, graduated with a degree ...

We matched, but not well enough.  It would be possible for me to donate to my husband, but it wouldn't be ideal since his blood reacted to the antigens in mine and that would have to be managed by medication and/or plasmapheresis, a "washing" of the blood to remove antibodies.  Either of these apparently would increase rejection risk and higher doses of the anti-rejection medications would be harder to tolerate.  All that meant we would likely go into an exchange pool and see if we matched others needing kidneys or other living donor volunteers.  This would increase the waiting time.  After almost two years of Pat being on the transplant list for a deceased donor with no results, further waiting was not what we were looking for. Then I received a call from the Transplant Donor Nurse asking if we would like to participate in a local exchange.  They had another two people in the Seattle area who were in the same boat as we were and who might be matches. ...

I've been MIA from the blogosphere for the last few months.  I've been knitting up a storm and spinning some, too, but documenting it here has taken a backseat to other things that have been on my mind.  I'll try to catch up and post some photos of things I'm especially proud of, but you can follow me on instagram @lboatsman to get the day to day images.  It's easier to snap a photo and post it with a couple of sentences than to create a blog post, even though I write them in my mind all the time. So, what's going on?  I'm going to write this story in a series of posts, as it won't be finished for awhile.  It started a couple of years ago, when my husband had to start dialysis due to kidney failure caused by childhood disease.  He had always taken good care of himself and managed to make it to age 60 before the inevitable occurred.  Dialysis is essentially intolerable but necessary for life to continue, so it's been tough.  He went onto the t...

I'm back here in the lovely, cold and rainy Pacific Northwest.  We arrived shortly after the middle of April in order to welcome our first grandson.  You might remember seeing some baby knitting that I did over the last few months.  That will have to suffice because, following parents' orders, we aren't allowed to post photos of the little guy on social media.  He's well, growing fast, and I've seen him wearing a hat or two that I made. Now to the adventure part of the story.  I don't remember if I've blogged about all the trips my sister and I have taken to our favorite spa in St. George, UT, but I think I wrote about our last trip three years ago.  We go on major birthdays, and this time it was one of hers.  To make this time even more special, The Princess came with us for the first three nights.  The spa is great; we always stay a week and get the package that includes hiking, exercise classes, meals, and one spa treatment a day.  I'm n...