Odd Differences

Ever since the transplant, I have had 2 MAJOR cravings....vegetables and Bojangle's fried chicken. While Bojangle's has always been my favorite chicken place, vegetables were never very high up on my To Eat list. In fact, most who know Bruce and I, know that Bruce loves vegetables and since I didn't, I usually didn't take the time to cook any. Sure I ate corn, peas and string beans and occasionally broccoli smothered in cheese, but this was on rare occasions before the transplant. My surgery was on a Thursday and then Tuesday we moved into the Townhouse. That Saturday we ventured out and about in Birmingham and came upon this area called Five Points. It was very quaint and I loved it. We decided to eat at the Ruby Tuesday's there and with my entree came steamed broccoli. I tore into the broccoli immediately and oohhed and ahhhed over how delicious it was. No cheese, no salt and not even any butter that I was aware of. Bruce sat there looking at me like I had grown 2 heads! He made the comment that he thought my taste buds had been effected by the kidney disease and maybe now I would enjoy food more. I was more of the mindset that my donor had maybe loved vegetables and while surfing the net, I found that there is a phenomina called Cellular Memory. Most of the explanations I read on WHY it happens seemed to be pretty hokey and I don't buy into those theories. But I can attest to the fact that I now LOVE vegetables and make sure most nights that veggies are on the table. Salad bars were always a welcome thing for me because I did love salads at least. Those are on the "Not To Do" list now because buffets/salad bars are usually not quite the temperature that is required to serve those items and so food illnesses could be lurking for transplant patients who cannot fight off the slightest bug. And so far the best vegetable yet to me is a container of greens from "Top Of the River" in Guntersville, AL.

Before and After

I promised earlier that I would share the differences my life has been since the transplant. The list is long so I'll try and keep it rather brief and hit the highlights. First, I no longer have to see the fear in my children's eyes of the possibility of growing up without a mom. Second, energy levels! I have alot more energy now but I do tend to over estimate what I can do and end up wiped out by the afternoon. The doctors assure me this is due to doing too much too soon. Waking up from the transplant surgery, I was immediately struck with thoughts of how can I give back to the community? How I can I live the life I now have that will bring honor and glory not only to God but to the family who so willingly donated the kidney? In Saving Private Ryan, Tom Hanks dying speech admonishing Private Ryan to live a life worthy of what it cost to bring him safely home has always been a personal mantra if you will to me. Only to me it's Jesus saying it to me. Now it took on additional meaning to me. For weeks I mulled it over and over of what I could do to give back and nothing was coming. Then one day our homeschool group had a field trip where the SARTEC K-9 group came and gave a demonstration. This group is an all volunteer group who help the various agencies in looking for lost children, Alzheimer's patients and also cadaver searches. THIS WAS IT!!! This was what I felt God tell me to do. I went to K, who along with her husband, Ed, are in charge of the team. My question was "How do I volunteer?" and her response "Do you have a dog and what kind?". Her eyes lit up when it became known that we had 2 Olde English Bulldogges. She instructed me to give her a call later and we would talk. The next day I called and let her know up front about my medical situation to which she replied, "I don't see a problem, about half the team are EMT's". She then gave me her son's telephone number since he was the one in charge of training the dogs. We hung up and about 10 minutes she called back and said that she had talked to the EMT's on the team and none of them had an issue with me coming on the team. YES! Couple of days later Andy, the trainer of the team called and we set up a time when he could come by and evaluate the dogs, me and Bruce's thoughts of me being on the team. The day came and the dogs did well and we continued our discussions over lunch with Andy. His assessment was that Sneakers had the energy and the inclination to do live rescues or air scents but thought Reccee might be more suited for cadaver searches. Mother's Day the whole family attended our first practise but without our dogs. The kids and Bruce got to hide and have the dogs on the team find them. Meanwhile I got to tag along with the handlers while trying to manuever through the woods with my broken foot. Four hours later as we were driving home Bruce commented that if anyone had told him a couple years ago that I would want to spend Mother's Day in the woods, he would have said they were crazy. I have dealt with the effects of the kidney disease for so long that I had forgotten what I use to enjoy. Hiking on the Appalacian Trail was a common thing for me to do with friends. Canoeing on the Cumberland River was another enjoyment that had slipped into the recesses of my memories. This past Sunday we got to bring our dogs for the first time and see how they would do. We decided that I would be Sneakers' handler while Bruce would run Reccee in the event he ever decided to join the team also. Sneakers certainly enjoyed the freedom of being off leash in the woods! He enjoyed it a little too much. I labeled him my ADHD dog when it came time to "find" the person. He did run straight up the path the person took and stopped when he lost track of the scent. The person had made a right turn into the woods at that point so he turned to come back to me but got distracted by who knows what. Since I am also in the learning stage, I didn't know how to instruct him to go back and "find". He actually did that on his own and zeroed right in on the "lost" person. When it came time for him to come and tell me he had "found" a person, well that was when the ADHD kicked in. After a short time we got him focused again and he led me to where his "find" was. Whew! Reccee on the other hand on her first run, trotted up the path with head toward the ground moving it from side to side. Where the person stepped off the path, so did Reccee and she went into the brush where the person was hiding. Unfortunately, Reccee has problems with allergies and the outside so I don't think she has the physical constitution for search and rescue. Sneakers has the physical constitution and only time will tell if he can hone in on his focusing skills. Most importantly, the transplant team gave their blessings with me doing this as long as there would be no sky diving!

Medical Update

Friday I went to my monthly kidney transplant clinic visit. My numbers are continuing to get better except it seems my White Blood Count is extemely low and I need to consume more fluids during the day. One of the anti rejection drugs' side effect is that it lowers the WBC so the Dr. decreased my Cellcept to 3 capsules 2x a day. I was a little anxious about the visit because I had been feeling extremely fatigued the past couple of weeks. Apparently I am expecting too much and too soon after surgery. To quote the Dr. "You're only 3 months out from the transplant! You're still recovering from major surgery!" But what concerned me was that I now seemed more tired than I had since the surgery. But my voice of reason (my hubby) started listing the things I am now doing on a daily basis that I haven't done in years. Ok, ok I had unrealistic expectations but when you go from feeling really, really bad to this good (even if it's not yet at a 100% recovery) you just start to do things. One thing that has been weighing on my shoulders is my Thank You letter to my donor family. I have thought and prayed about what to say since my surgery. Somehow the words Thank You didn't seem to be enough. Last weekend I attended a scrapbooking retreat and was finally able to sit down and try and put my thoughts and feelings into a letter. Then since I make cards, I had to find an example of just the "right" card to make which with a friend's help I did. To any of you who have received a transplant, I encourage you to write or send a card to your donor family. One of my fellow transplant friends had a distant relative pass away in a freak accident and they made the gracious gift of life by donating what could be used. They made the comment to my friend that they would like to know who received his organs. My friend drove to the hospital and found out who had received transplants on the date of the man's death. He visited the patients and told them he was a kidney receipent and just encouraged them to write their letters to the donor family without letting on that he knew them. Unfortunately he was escorted out of the hospital when the nurses discovered what was happening.
While I was down in Birmingham I ran into some of my fellow transplantees and it was like old home week because we ran into each other at the Lab. All the transplant patients gathered at the Lab every morning around 6:00 am to have their daily blood drawn. Didn't matter if you were a kidney, liver or heart patient, you were there. There was a little girl who was about 5 years old that had just had a heart transplant and she too had to have her arm stuck every morning. The Lab people tried to do it as quick and painless as possible because your emotions just went out to this little girl and her parents. At least she had been through the toughest part and was on the downhill slide. Let me give you a little information on what the heart transplant patients have to go through. Because the heart cannot survive too long out of the body, heart patients once they get so far up on the list have to move into the Townhouse so they are right there when the heart becomes available. The apartments in the Townhouse are about the size of an old college dorm room. One family we met who was leaving the Townhouse had been there 7 months between waiting for the heart and the recovery time. We met a 27 yr old man who was living in the Townhouse waiting for a heart that matched to come in. Last I heard, he's still waiting. So again I'll give another plug.....Become an organ donor if you haven't already! It really does make a difference to someone and I'll go into what a difference it's made in my life in another post.