The potential donor number 2 story? OK, here it is:
So I get the call Thursday afternoon at work that there were some possible organs for me and to wait for their call. Thursday at about 11:45 PM they finally call me back and tell me everything is looking like a go, they want me to start fasting at midnight (in fifteen mins) and to come into the hospital by 7:00 the next morning to start the prep for surgery. We had eaten dinner late, I'd say at about 8:00 PM so I didn't eat anything else, just laid in bed and tried unsuccessfully to get some sleep.
The next morning we went to the hospital. Did the standard transplant surgery prep stuff: chest x-ray, EKG, bowel prep, signed consent forms, placed the I.V., etc, etc
Wait: Lets go back to the bowel prep. They explained to me that its similar to the bowel prep when doing a colonoscopy, except more intense. You have to keep in mind that when they do find me a pancreas, they will need to sew it to my bowel, so I've gotta be all cleaned out, not just mostly cleaned out. It wasn't fun.
So we waited. We played cards. We stared at our phones. I mostly napped since I didn't get much sleep the night before and was exhausted also from a combination of the fasting since 8 PM the night before, and the bowel prep. I was starving! They kept coming in to give us updates, but those updates were really just to tell us that they didn't have an update yet. They said they don't know yet when the organs would be harvested so they couldn't tell me when my potential surgery would be either. They told us that one donor could potentially save up to 9 lives so there is often some scheduling difficulties with other transplant surgeons, plus its hard to predict or know when the family will be ready and finished saying their goodbyes to the donor who, at this point is often just being kept alive with the help of machines. Its a lot.
So we waited.
Oh, side story:
Trace (my 9 year old step-son) did the sweetest thing. The doctor came in and told us they don't know anything yet, surgery could be late tonight, or maybe even tomorrow, we'll keep you posted. When she left, Trace turned to me and said "So the surgery might not be until tomorrow?"
"That's right buddy, we'll just have to wait and see what they tell us."
"Well, if its not until tomorrow, what are we going to do about your dialysis?"
He was concerned cause I didn't bring any of my dialysis equipment with me and I typically hook up overnight. He was ready to make a plan and put it into action to make sure I was feeling as good as possible. Don't I have the most amazing kid ever?!! My heart just melted at his concern for me!
Anyway, that's the end of the side story, back to the main story:
The surgeon finally came into my room again around 9:30 or 10:00 that evening and told me that the pancreas doesn't look well enough, they don't want to transplant it. Not happening this time.
That was fine. I knew that could (and likely would) happen and I wasn't too bummed. I mean, I was bummed, of course, but it wasn't earth shattering or overly depressing. I want to wait for the healthiest looking organs ever anyway, right?
So I ate a banana, gathered my things, was discharged and went home. Since it was so late, I was so tired, and I hadn't done the prep yet to hook up for dialysis I just didn't bother. I went to bed and figured I'd do it the next day.
The next day, I was still having some intense cramping, I assumed from the bowel prep...I'm telling you guys, that stuff is no fun at all. And I was still feeling completely wiped out. Understandable, I thought. It had been an emotional roller-coaster of a day. Luckily I didn't have anything planned so I could just take it easy. It wasn't until I hooked up to dialysis that night that I realized something else was wrong. It was the most painful initial drain I had ever felt. I've had some slight discomfort before with dialysis, but never anything like this. I turned the lights back on and looked at the fluid that was coming from my catheter. It looked like puss. SO disgusting! I unhooked and called the on-call nurse from my dialysis center. I had peritonitis. A very scary and serious infection of the peritoneum (that sack type thing that houses all your organs). People are usually so sick when they get peritonitis that they are hospitalized. They have damage to their liver and/or other organs. They die. This is serious shit.
They got me on some antibiotics that I put directly into my peritoneum, and did a bunch of tests. I slept for a week. I am finally feeling a bit better, and went back to work today, but this thing kicked my ass! They said based on the tests they did, that it looks like this came from the bowel prep. Stupid bowel prep!
So that's the story of attempt number 2. It's really not my favorite story. It was pretty dumb.
