All the Lose Ends

I don't have much to blog about today, but its been a few days since the last update so I'll fill everyone in. Nathanial is headed to Wichita today (face mask and hand sanitizer in tow so as to avoid swine flu!). He is attending his final 'Advanced Transplant' class in the transplant center at St Francis. The whole family attended one of these classes last year when we first started planning. The class is EXTREMELY uncomfortable. They talk about flank incisions, and they talk about getting a tube shoved in your pee hole, and they talk about the epidural, and they talk about medications after the surgery, and they do their best to really really talk you out of going through with it if you aren't a 100% dedicated. I remember getting grossed out enough that I lost my appetite--and, FYI, it takes a lot of work to make me lose my appetite!! I remember them going over some statistics of survival rates and things like that. They also talked about the financials of the process. So, today's meeting is a follow-up to that original meeting for Nathanial.

I believe Nat also meets with the wound specialist today. For those of you that don't know, back when Nathanial went septic a few years ago, he also lost half of one of his feet. His entire foot had turned a nasty shade of green/black with oozies coming out of it and mom and dad had to make the decision (while Nathanial was still in a coma) to go ahead and remove part of his foot to save the rest. He lost both of his calves and his nose and a few fingertips, but the major thing was his foot. His foot still gives him problems to this day. He had another surgery just a few months ago to shave off a little more of the foot bone and the doctor added some shark cartlidge to help the foot heal better. Apparently, when you don't have kidney function, you don't heal well from other illnesses. For three years, Nathanials foot wouldn't heal from the original surgery. It was very painful for him. He couldn't walk very far or for very long at a time. He had to keep his foot bandaged at all times and change his dressings often. It was all very sad. Then just a few weeks before my wedding is when he had surgery to add the shark cartlidge. We were all very impressed with how quickly he was up and walking after this proceedure. Now he has special little shoes that go around his stub to make him walk better! But back to my original thought--today he follows up with the wound care doctor for his foot. They have to make sure the foot is doing alright before proceeding with the transplant.

I don't have any more tests or meetings until Thursday. Thursday I have to take the entire day off work. So far, I have managed to just take bits and pieces of my work days off for all my tests and meetings. The bank has been really good about working with me on my schedule. This Thursday puts a bit of a kink in things at work because we have several people gone, but no one has given me a hard time about not being here. Everyone at work seems to understand, and even though they don't really know Nathanial, they are all cheering for him. I know its hard on people that aren't part of the family to really wrap their mind around how important this is.

I have been scheduled a glucose tolerance test on Thursday. I guess they don't usually do this test for the donor, but because I had gestational diabetes when I was pregnant with Corynne, they want to make sure I don't have diabetic tendencies now. Then just yesterday I got a phone call telling me that I not only get to meet with the Nephrologist Thursday, but I also get to meet with the Surgeon!!!! So that is HUGE news! On my checklist of things left to do, that completely wraps me up. I am hoping we get to schedule the actual date of the transplant Thursday! We shall see....and when I find out, believe you me, I will blog about it! ~Hilary