Cleared to Return to the Sunshine State

Yesterday was our follow up visit with the transplant clinic to make sure I was recovering well.  They drew blood, only two vials, when I was going through pre-op and testing, they would take about 8 at a time so I felt a little less important.  I also had to give a urine sample as well, for some reason it always amazes me that whenever they ask I am ready to go, I guess once my mind sees that container it relays the message.

All of the appointments at UNC have been very timely and gone off very well, we showed up at 9:45 for a 10am appt. and by 10 I had my blood drawn and was waiting in the transplant clinic for the doctors.  My blood pressure was a little high about 5 to 10 points on both sides everyone seemed to think that was white coat hypertension (the stress of coming to the hospital).

My creatinine readings were about double what they were when I had two kidneys which I was told to expect before the surgery and the levels didn’t seem to concern anyone.  Over time my remaining kidney will learn to handle more of the load once my body comes to terms with Jash (my donated kidney) being gone.

They also checked the wound on my stomach.  It is about a 4 inch scar starting about an inch over my belly button and running up.  They had closed the wound with steri-strips and over the past week they had begun flaking off and I could see more of the wound.  By the time we went in this morning there was only on remaining at the top of the wound, and two each on the laproscopic holes.  The holes are located lower on my stomach one below my belly button, and one about 3 or 4 inches to stage left.  The remaining strips were removed, both of the laproscopic holes look good and the top of the major incision is holding tightly but the majority of the wound opened a little bit, about a ¼ inch. 

You can check out the wound below, I tried to get this picture on a separate link so you had a choice of whether or not you wanted to see my stomach, but too bad you are just going to have to tough it out.

It is not a big deal, it just means the scar will be a little bigger, which Kate has been telling everyone that I prefer anyway.  I’m not sure I really feel that way, I mean I hadn’t put a lot of thought into the scar part of it, I didn’t mind it because as a guy we like to have something to show for the efforts we have made.  The other problem is I have never been in the best shape and it is on my stomach so I’ve never been the guy that takes his shirt off wherever he goes.  So now I really am going to have to get into a little bit better shape so I can show off my scar.  Instead of a beach body I am going to have to get my scar body going.