Its been a tough week. After getting the news that I'm a match, the reality has sunk in that we're actually going to have a kidney transplant.
It's unreal.
I feel like I'm living someone else's life and any moment I'll go back to my real life. I never expected anything like this to happen.
Its friggin hard. You can substitute that other word if you catch my drift.
So the reality is that I will be wheeled into a room where surgeons will take my left kidney out of my body. Then, they'll carry it over to Kristie's room and place it in her body....carefully. My kidney will have a new home in her body. They'll place it in her lower abdomen area and hook it up to her bladder with the artery they also took.
Her other kidneys will remain in her body, just hanging out.
Here's the hard part right now. There are pros and cons to doing this transplant this summer. Because we've learned to manage her medication and diet, she's relatively healthy and strong right now, except for her kidneys. So, if she has the surgery now, she'll recover more quickly, theoretically.
Do we wait until her disease gets worse and she gets sick? If we wait, then her recovery from the surgery could be harder on her. And more lengthy. And I don't want her to get sick.
If we wait, I could get sick and we lose my healthy kidney.
If we wait, Katie could get pregnant which would make it more difficult to coordinate Kristie's post op care. However, I would LOVE TO HAVE ANOTHER GRANDBABY!
If we wait, Kristie could just stay at her creatinine level of 3 and when it gets to 4 we do it then. How long will it take to get to a 4? That's the million dollar question - if we knew the answer to that, believe me, this decision would be a snap. (She was at 4.1 last November, but then it went back down.)
Here's the other hard part. We're making a decision to put Kristie under the knife and then take drugs the rest of her life so her body doesn't reject the kidney. Who does that??!
What would you do?
Now you know why I've been crying for a week.
On a better note, Kristie and I are going to see Joyce Meyer in person tonight at the Tacoma Dome. We LOVE Joyce Meyer and have wanted to see her in person for a long time. We listen to her CDs and watch her on tv. She's fantastic. Cannot wait to see her tonight!
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4 comments:
There is no easy answer, but I know you will do what feels right for both Kristie and yourself. Please let us know if there is anything we can do on our end...
I think of you all everyday, I can't imagine what you are going through. Do you ever sleep at night. I'll be praying ., Cathie
Ani has a beautiful song on her last album with the line "To Split yourself in two is the most radical thing you can do." She's talking about having a child. I imagine if feels like that. Splitting yourself in two. So hard, yet is seems like such an easy choice at the same time. I guess that's what being a mom is all about... Lucky for Kristy and Katie to have such a fantastic one.
Super hard decisions. Try to spend some quiet time in prayer and hear what God's will is for the surgery. Will you be having the surgery at the UW..if so my hubby works in ICU and could be Kristie's nurse!
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