Knittinggarden

A couple of days ago, Pat and I were talking about how long ago our surgery was.  I was sure that the answer was 6 weeks.  Since I'm always right 😉, I made him get out the calendar and count the weeks because he thought it was 7 this week.  After counting several times, I admitted he was right. 7 weeks!  That means the lifting restriction will be up next week for sure and I can get my weights out.  It's funny, too, that now that I know we're farther along than I thought, I feel better.  The light at the end of the tunnel of being an invalid is in view, so I can go back to feeling healthy.  😀 In honor of that, I walked to the post office and back this morning - about 4 miles.  No marathon, but about double my usual distance.  And it felt great!  I've been doing some yoga, and plan to start back to class on Friday if there's room for me.  I'm all signed up for March, too.  The residual soreness around the main incision is s...

When I last posted, we had passed our cold snap and were having fairly mild weather, which gave us lots of opportunities to get out and walk.  If you're not familiar with the Pacific Northwest, it is a lovely place to live for a lot of the year.  The winters, however, are gray.  The skies match the pavement.  If you live on a lake, as we do, the sky matches the color of the water, which is the color of the cement patio and the color of the dock.  It also rains quite a lot.  If you have recently had surgery and must stay in this gray atmosphere until further notice, it can get quite depressing.  If you can't get out to the gym because you're not allowed to be around germs or you can't lift any weight and you can't walk outside because it's pouring rain, you get doubly depressed because you can't get any endorphins going by exercising or seeing the sun. So, we had a nice change last week when it snowed!  We don't get much snow around here and ...

We had a little upset in our usual schedule of resting last week...we both can walk around our lake, which is about 2 miles, with no trouble.  Pat, though, had been noticing a bit of shortness of breath while walking uphill.  We, of course, ignored it until it got pretty bad last Friday, when he called to report it.  He had had a similar occurence several years ago and it had been a reaction to a blood pressure medication so we assumed that would be the case again. The transplant coordinator talked to the doctor and they decided we needed to come in to their ER.  It's an hour away with no traffic and it of course was Friday night.  So we ate dinner and hit the road. The reason they wanted us at UWMC was so the transplant docs could oversee any tests and make sure the new kidney wouldn't be compromised.  That sounded good, until the transplant representative showed up three hours after we arrived and said she had just found out we were there.  So much...

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 ...