On Tuesday, I get to give my wife of 13 years my left kidney. I'm 51, she's almost 46. She's had diabetes since age 12 and had her first kidney/pancreas transplant 15 years ago this coming Friday.

Just hoping to compare notes with anyone who's been there and done it. Especially the pain and recovery process.

Thanks,

Alan

You must be an "O-Negative"?

It is a glorious thing you are doing. The lady across the road from us just gave a friend from Alaska a kidney less than three weeks ago. She was in the hospital for only 4 days, and was up walking around in about 16 hours. On the first day back here she was doing her usual 3-mile daily walk with her husband. Then she spent 9 days driving down to visit friends 800 miles away in southern California and back home again 3 days ago. Incidentally, she is circa 60 years old.

She experienced very little pain, and her remaining kidney is working to keeo her at a 0.8 creatin rate (you'll know what I mean). The recipient of her kidney went from a 14.0 reading to a 1.1 in 24 hours, then down to just below 1.0 in the next 24 hours.

The surgery I'm describing occured in one of the best kidney transplant centers in the world, in Seattle.

God bless and keep you for your most generous act.

AC

AC,

Actually, O-Pos. Thanks for the boost. I happened to stop by one of our local gun shops yesterday to pick up a 1700 count box of Hornady .451" 200 gr FMJ/CT ENC for a friends 1911. I was talking to one of the guys behind the counter, saying I need to get these now since by weeks end it would be painful if darn near impossible for me to pick up such a heavy item with the impending donation. He totally shocked my be telling me he had given his brother a kidney 4 years ago in Denver. Gave the low down on his pain which allowed him to go to Tylenol with in 2 days and work (desk job) with in 5 days. Both you and he really gave me a boost.

Thanks,

Alan

Good luck tomorrow GSSP.....you'll come thru it without a hitch. I performed many kidney and liver transplants back during my general surgery days, prior to going into plastics(and who knows, maybe I'll do a face transplant one of these days!).

I assume it will be a laparoscopic-assisted harvest? If so, much less painful and far quicker recovery.

Godspeed to you and your wife.

GSSP, You are a true hero.

All the best . . .

Don't get to play now!

On Monday, my wife and I spent the better part of the day up at the U of Utah hospital going through last minute testing to ensure our blood type and cross match, etc, had not changed. Something which must be accomplished just prior to surgery otherwise her body would reject my kidney. When we were done at 3:00 pm, we walked out of the hospital, giddy as a couple of kids with only 16 hours until the surgery. We were waiting out at the curb for the parking valet to deliver our car to us when my wife received a call from her transplant coordinator. Bad, terrible, horrible news. My wife's antibody levels had somehow increased since the first blood testing two months back and she was no longer compatible to receive my kidney. Felt like a 300 lb linebacker had just blind sided us! It's two days later and we're still in shock/denial. Now, my wife is at a different hospital undergoing extensive testing due to large amounts of congealed blood coming through her bowels. Not good!!! Their going to have to transfuse her today which means her antibody levels will go even higher, eliminating her from even more potential kidney donors. Not good!

I talked to the transplant director, a good friend of mine. He's also devestated. He says this happens about 2-3 times per year. It's a bit rare but can happen he says. He's having her place on the national transplant list for a kidney which could take 6 months to 2 years which is the latest figure we got. He's also looking into a "pair match" program where some one elses donor may match with my wife and would match with their recepient Kind of a kidney trade with someone else. Meanwhile dialysis will keep my wife alive but they call it "the walking dead". What ever family plans we had/have are now in limbo.

Please wish my wife well and keep her in your prayers.

Alan

Sorry to hear that.....Good luck to you both going forward.

quote:

Originally posted by GSSP:
Please wish my wife well and keep her in your prayers.
Alan

Absolutely.

I have a good friend with Type II diabetes and he needs a kidney, too. I cannot relate to your circumstances 100%, but I do understand the frustration because I see it in my friend. He has changed in the two years his condition has become more acute. He was once a happy-go-lucky guy. Now he's sullen, short-tempered and reclusive. The dialysis is damned near killing him but it's all he has to keep him alive for his wife and three kids...

My prayers for the continued ability of your wife to fight...

I am surprised and dismayed to hear this news from you. It is why I asked your blood-type to begin with.

From the little info I have (and I might have this backwards), O-Positive is what they call a "Universal Donor"...that is anyone's body will accept their kidneys. The other, I believe it is the O-Negative, is what is called a Universal Recipient....that is they supposedly can receive a kidney from anyone.

Apparently there is more to it than that indicates, but certainly the lady across the street donated HER kidney to a person who was not the same blood-type as she is, and it went off without a hitch.

If you learn more, please let us all know here.

In the meantime, as an insulin-dependent severe diabetic for the last 52 years myself, please tell your wife I wish her well and will be saying special prayers for her.

Pax Vobiscum.

There are numerous factors that go into the MATCH process, in general the top three are:

Blood type. (Rh)

Recepient's type (A, B, AB, or O) must be compatible with the donor’s blood type.

(though, there have been some cross-type transplants)

HLA factors.

HLA stands for human leukocyte antigen, a genetic marker located on the surface of white blood cells.
Three antigens from the mother and three from the father.
A higher number of matching antigens between recpient and donor increases the chance that the donated kidney will last for a long time.

Antibodies.

The recipient's immune system may produce antibodies that act specifically against something in the donor’s tissues.

To see whether this is the case, a small sample of blood will be mixed with a small sample of the donor’s blood in a tube.

If no reaction occurs,the recipient should be able to accept the kidney.
The transplant team might use the term negative cross-match to describe this lack of reaction.

It's been a hell of a couple of weeks. Man!!!

The following day, Tuesday, the day the transplant was supposed to occur, my wife started having blood coming through her bowels. She and I both suspected her 15 year old, previoiusly transplanted pancreas (kidney and pancreas n 1984) as it had been acting up shortly after her nephrologist took her off her immunosupressants about 3 months back. With enough blood coming through we went to the ER and she spent the night. Three days later after a colonoscopy, endoscopy, pill camera, blood tagging study to see where the blood was coming from and finally a arthroscopic procedure to cauterize what was thought to be casusing the bleeding, the doctors thought they had solved the problem. Saturday am, just over a week ago, she started bleeding profusly. She called me at home in a state of panic and I got to the OR just in time to kiss her goodbye as they wheeled her off to emergency exploratory abdominal surgery. Six hours later the surgeon came out to give me the report. They ran an endoscopy tube down through her stomach, through her small intestine. They suspected a bleed from her small intesting thus they performed an 8" small bowel resection. During the resection, they noticed a small seudo anurism on the artery connecting the Iliac artery to her transplanted pancreas. Sometime during this, a blood clot in the pancreas broke loose. The docter said her entire absominal cavity quickly filled w/ blood. They had 3/three/3/THREE!!! doctors with their hands in her gut, trying to fix things. The surgeon told me they went through 23 units of plasma, platlets and whole washed blood cells trying to fill her up. I think that's somewhere around "more" than her body would normally carry. He told had she been anywhere other than in the OR with her gut open, she wouldn't have made it. To include had the transplant gone through, she would have surely lost it and I'd be out one kidney and possibly my wife. She recovering fine now and might get to come back home Monday or Tuesday. Then it's back to dialysis and hoping, waiting and praying for a transplant.

I thank all of you for your prayers, thoughts and kind words. The big man upstairs, IMHO, really diverted a HUGE catastrophy by diverting the transplant.

Alan

quote:

The big man upstairs, IMHO, really diverted a HUGE catastrophe by diverting the transplant.

And some in these pages do not believe in Him. I sure as hell do...