If all goes as planned....

I've had many people asking what the recovery schedule is following my mom's and my surgeries. As the doctors are always quick to warn us, everyone's recovery is different. However, I can give you a general overview of what we're planning for at this time.

Our family will leave for Stanford next Monday, July 13th. My mom and I are checking into Stanford Hospital on Tuesday. The most important item on my agenda for that day is to be sure to tell the anesthesiologist that I want to be pumped full of the anti-nausea medication well-before I come out of surgery. I'm one of those people who's an easy puker and that's pretty much the last thing I want to be doing after abdominal surgery!

I'm scheduled to have my kidney removed in the morning of Wednesday, July 15th. If all goes well, the surgeon will take a lunch break around noon and then put my kidney (which will have been chilling on ice) into my mom that afternoon. Assuming everything looks good during the transplant, the surgeon will take out my mom's dialysis access tube (in her abdomen) at the same time. She will officially be off dialysis from then on!

They've told me that I should probably be released from the hospital on Friday or Saturday, and my mom will hopefully be released on Saturday or Sunday. I will have a follow-up appointment the next Thursday and then a couple check-ups over the next year, just to make sure I've healed properly. My mom, on the otherhand, will just be at the beginning of a crazy schedule of visits back to the Stanford Medical Center. During the first month, she will go for lab work and visits several times a week. They will be monitoring the new kidney and adjusting her medications (more than a dozen of them!) accordingly. They are very vigilant about looking for signs of rejection. During the second month following the transplant, the visits and lab work decrease slightly to just a couple times a week. She and my dad will remain in the Stanford/Palo Alto area for those two months. Hopefully, they will return to Morro Bay mid-September and just drive up to Stanford for the few appointments during the next month. She's been told to stay away from work and any other kinds of stressors for a full three months following the surgery.

My recovery is much more simple. Some pain meds and lots of rest for the first couple weeks. I'll stay up in Stanford/Palo Alto with my parents for a couple weeks before heading back home. I can't do any heavy lifting for about 6 weeks (which apparently rules out both my cat and my niece!) I hope to be back at work around the second week of August (if I can keep my self away from the office at the first of the month!)

My dad has the very important job of being my mom's primary caretaker. It's a great responsibility, but I know he's up to the task and we'll try to give him as much support as possible. There's lots of medication to manage, monitoring to do and screening out of the potential stressors that come along. I'm sure that along with any worry about the responsibility, he's also looking forward to a lot of time together for the two of them away from the demands of home life.

So, that's what we're planning for right now. Only time will tell if things go along as planned. As always we just take one day at a time.....