Jan

And I remember the phone call that I got-- after the bloodwork, that initial bloodwork where they took all of my blood [*chuckles*] out of my body. That's what it seems like. I've never seen that many vials, by the way. But anyway the, that after that, the first couple of blood tests certainly the one to see if we were match was first and-and that, I remember that phone call from, uhm, from the department there-- the transplant department. And the woman said, "Jan, I- we got the results on your- on your blood test, on your screening and you and your uncle matched beautifully." That's the way she put it. And I remember saying, "All right." Well, that was our first obstacle and so off we went. And then-then it was more of that testing.

Because I did pretty much the textbook of the issues that right side kidney donors can-can have…The first thing that for that right side being open and everything like that and being that retro peritoneal space and that pain it's-it’s just a-it’s a really difficult pain to control. And so to- and every patient is different... And so for me I'm real sensitive to narcotics. They just make me sick. IV, oral, it doesn't matter. They- they just- they don't agree with me…My recollection is that it was about 24 hours before we really got pain under control and figured it out. And because of my response to narcotics being one of nausea and- and then dry heaving for crying out loud because you have nothing in your stomach that as you know, that just made that incision area scream beyond belief. So once we got it figured out and got the pain under control then that was our- that was the first recovery obstacle that we- that we had to get over…Well, I wasn't home but a day or two and the-the discomfort was getting what I thought was worse… I just kept kind of downplaying it until finally it-my ability to overcome, ignore, or deny pain was overtaken and I finally told my daughter a couple of days after getting home I said, “Man… Take me to the ER. I can't get comfortable. I'm really hurting…" finally the ER doc she came back in and she said," Sweetie, you're not a baby. You have a hematoma the size of two of my fists in your retro peritoneal space. And she said that is absolutely excruciatingly painful… transplant where I originally had the surgery wanted me back. Of course, they were like, "Get her back." And my little ER here in our little town, they were like, "Get her out of here." They wanted me out and transplant wanted me back…and I got flown out on the smallest helicopter I've ever seen in my life. I call it a toy helicopter made out of Legos… But that was an awesome experience as well. The ER, the helicopter, crew, everybody. They were just awesome and of course getting back to transplant, getting back to the hospital the same wonderful experience. I just got- I just got set back a week is all and. When you- when you see the end result of that that's really what it amounted to was a hiccup, for sure. And I definitely had to be textbook, which is not normally my-my MO. I'm usually I'm the exception, not the rule but once we got over that hump, I spent a few more days there and came home and then I was well on my way to recovery after that, which does take some time. It takes time anyway for the right side. It just takes a little more time anyway.