I got it.
I still can't really wrap my head around it, but I got it. I got a transplant of my pancreas and kidney.
I got the call Saturday afternoon/evening (January 19, 2019). They said the normal things they say; we have some organs, have you been sick, come down to the hospital around 6:00 or 7:00 this evening and we'll start the work up. So we took Trace (my 10 year old step-son) to his friends for a sleepover and went to the hospital. I was certain this was another false alarm. Maybe that was just my way of trying to protect myself emotionally from this crazy rollercoaster ride I've been on, but there are times I've gotten called that it felt like it could really be happening and this just wasn't one of those times. So we went in. We got the X-rays and the EKG and put an IV in. Did all the normal stuff. Then we spent the night. My husband Devon and I slept there that night, feeling sure we'd be sent home the next day, then my parents got there the next morning to keep us company. And we just waited. Played some card games, watched the football game, chatted, just kind of killed the time. We were there all day. At around 4:00 pm, Devon left to get some dinner and just a couple minutes after he left the nurse came in and said "surgery is on their way up to get you"
"WHAT?!
What did you just say?
I thought you were coming to tell me to go home, this one isn't the one"
But it was/is the one.
And surgery was on their way up to get me so they could completely change my whole life
We called Devon "Get back here! She's going into surgery"
He came back. Surgery came and wheeled me in my bed down to the surgical floor and I got a couple new organs. I went into surgery on Sunday, January 20, 2019 at around 5:30 pm (I think the first hours were prep stuff, I seem to remember hearing the actual surgery part started around 7:00 pm, but I don't actually know...I was a bit too drugged up to remember) and got out of surgery Monday, January 21, at around 1:00 am. Six hours to install two organs, remove my appendix and my dialysis cathader. Six hours for a new scar that runs the entire length of my torso, brest plate to pelvic bone. I couldn't be more happy about that damn scar.
I was in ICU for 3 days, I can vaguely remember some of that stuff. I was SO thirsty and they kept giving me this pink sponge on a stick I was calling lollipops.
"Can I please have another lollipop?"
Those damn things saved me! I've never had such a dry mouth in my entire life. I couldn't breath from it. After ICU, they moved me back to T-10. The Transplant floor. And that's where I stayed for nearly 3 more weeks. I ended up being in the hospital for a total of 23 days.
They almost sent me home after about a week, but I got a rare form of nodule pneumonia which kind of got scary so I stayed much longer and did a LOT of tests to make sure I was going to stay nice and healthy for a long time (knock wood).
My new organs are working great. The steroids I'm on are making my blood sugars run just a little high from time to time, which of course has me a bit nervous, but the doctors don't seem to be too worried and are keeping an eye on it so hopefully that keeps getting better.
I'm home now and feeling great. I get so tired so easily and they said I'll continue to do that for months still. I'm out of work for at least 3 months (till end of April, tentatively)
So now, I'm just healing.
Life is so amazing!
