Minor setback

Once again, I am out of the hospital and in the comfort of the Ronald McDonald House. I updated my Facebook page regularly but I'm not really able to update here from my iTouch because the keypad is so  small and I want to be able to write big long updates so FB is easier but now that I've got my laptop back I can update here and let y'all know what's happened and what's going on.

Wednesday morning, I had a routine appointment, met with the nurse, met with one of the doctors on my surgeon's team and then went back to the House where I promptly collapsed, completely exhausted, on the couch and watched TV for the rest of the evening. I was sooooo tired, unusually tired. But I told myself that it had to be because of the appointment and the major surgery I had and I have absolutely no energy for anything right now. (except TV watching because that's easy!) I tested positive for C-dif again. (You can read a similar post about my dealing with this before right here.)

I was starting to feel a little dehydrated but I was drinking tons of water and I thought I would be able to keep my fluid intake up enough but as soon as I went to bed, I lost the hydration battle. I tried to remember to drink whenever I woke up to roll over or go to the bathroom or whatever but the two hours between bathroom trips when I was sleeping was enough to fall way behind the power curve and I woke up with very familiar symptoms.

Getting dehydrated happens often and C-diff has happened often in the last two years every time I've gotten antibiotics. And, by the way, the hospital was told specifically to treat me for C-diff and they didn't think that was "necessary" and all I have to say to them is "I told you so!"

Anyway, Thursday morning was just supposed to be a morning appointment with a doctor who came in to see me about the blood clot in my arm from my old hemo-dialysis catheter. Instead, I ended up feeling so sick to my stomach and I was dry heaving because I was so dehydrated I didn't have anything to throw up. I also couldn't eat or drink anything and my eyes felt (and looked) like they were being sucked into my head.

So we called and I was admitted right away and, eventually, they got an IV into my arm and, as has happened before, within 30 minutes I was feeling better already. So I had four bags of IV fluid and I had my PD catheter drained and flushed yesterday and today because there was blood in the tube and we needed to make sure it was just from the surgery and not any internal bleeding.

Aside from some added medications, everything was fine with my new kidney (affectionately called Lefty and my dad named him. Long story...) and we caught the dehydration soon enough before any damage was done to Lefty. Actually, Lefty is working a little too well right now and he really should pull back a little bit because I'm having trouble keeping up with him. :-/

My surgery site is fine, my dialysis access site is fine, I'm moving around better every day and the pain is continuing to lessen. The C-diff is being taken care of, I have my appetite back, I'm out of the hospital... Physically, I'm doing alright and there's not really anything to report on that end. Emotionally, not so much.

I have the hardest time relaxing and calming down after a hospital stay. When I'm in the hospital, I can't sleep and if I do happen to get some sleep, it's quickly interrupted by a nurse coming in the middle of the night to take my vitals or draw blood or whatever. All day long, doctors, nurses, techs, teams, dietitians, pharmacy agents and visitors are all popping into my room, mostly unexpected but at least some of my visitors call and ask before they come.

So now that I'm out of the hospital, it's hard to... stop, I guess. Stop being tense, stop always being on guard, stop trying to brace myself for the next needle poke, IV medication, the next tube being pulled, the next nasty medication to be given, the next blood draw, the next feeling of pain. Even though I know that no one in scrubs or a white lab coat is going to walk through my doors, I have the hardest time calming down and not *feeling* like someone is.

Just in case you were wondering...

On a totally different note, a family from my church stopped by to visit (and yes, they did call and ask before they came.) and it was really great to see them. They cheered me up so much by bringing me an awesome vase of flowers that looks like an ice cream shake (complete with a cherry and a hot pink straw!) and I was also serenaded by a wonderful rendition of the Veggie Tales song (God is Bigger Than The Boogie Man) and received a beautiful hand drawn picture (in crayons! I love crayons) that I taped to my wall so I could look at it. They also gave me a bag of chocolate and I was actually told by my doctor that I needed to eat more chocolate (which I'm more than happy to comply with!) That was the highlight of my day! The second best thing that happened was getting out of the hospital.

Some prayer requests would be obviously, that I can hang in emotionally. There's another reason why I'm in such a funk today and it involves a place that's very special to me and most of my very close friends that I haven't seen for a while were all there this weekend and instead of being there with them, I was in the hospital with an IV in my arm so that was enough to knock me down a couple notches today. Also, continue to be praying for my recovery. I'm out of the really critical week for a rejection episode but that still could happen and I'm praying hard it won't happen at all.

Another would be to pray for another family in my church who are coming up soon because one of their little boys is having surgery. Something I'm looking forward to is that they are going to be staying at the Ronald McDonald house with us and that will be very encouraging but it's not good that the little boy is having surgery so please be praying that everything will go fine for him and his family while they're here.

Continue to be in prayer for my dad as he is still recovering. The lack of energy he has is hard for him because my dad is such a hard worker and having to rest is difficult for him. But he has been very good about listening to his body and resting when he needs to. He'll be coming up for his check up soon and I'm looking forward to seeing him.

Thank you for your continued prayers and support. I'll try to keep y'all updated as much as I can so you can know what's going on.