Donating Life 2… A Saga
/To continue David’s kidney donation saga…
Back in April, further testing had been done at Wake Forest Baptist (WFB) including a tissue match to determine that David and Burger were compatible. Colleen, our Transplant Coordinator and her staff, coordinated all this for us without a hitch. We already knew that the blood types matched and ultimately we learned that David and Burger were a good all-around donor-donee match, but what if they hadn’t been? If David had still decided to go ahead with a kidney donation, Burger would have been moved to the top of the recipient list. As it worked out, since David’s kidney did go to Burger as planned, he was no longer on the recipient list and someone else will get the kidney that Burger would have eventually gotten. The donation ended up helping two people… a two-fer!
Wake Forest Baptist Medical Center is a very impressive place. It’s a maze to negotiate.
Settled back in Las Vegas in mid-September, there was so much to do before returning to Wake Forest Baptist (WFB) in October. Colleen confirmed all the dates for surgery that we’d requested. We knew David would be on the ‘injured reserve’ list for 4-6 weeks and he wanted to finish up house and Blanche projects before his surgery. I booked round-trip airfare to Charlotte and a rental car. We were advised that David should not fly for a week-10 days after surgery so I made a reservation at SECU Family House, a Ronald McDonald kind of place for adults near the hospital in Winston-Salem. We were ready.
We let only a few people know of David’s intentions… mostly family and close friends. We were met with mixed reactions to his decision. The term ‘crazy’ was used a few times by some and others were awed by his generosity. The days ticked by and finally it was time to leave.
David’s brother drove us to the airport early on a Sunday morning. The ride was quiet and sobering. David was really going ahead with this. We’d talked about it incessantly (read that… Marcie talked, David listened patiently and reassuringly). David was calm and collected… that’s David being David. I, on the other hand, was feeling a significant amount of angst. I’m prone to ‘what if’ scenarios and they were raging.
Colleen Jay, M.D. - She’s pretty impressive, too!
The flight to Charlotte was a non-event other than a two-hour delayed departure due to a flat tire (really???). We drove the 1-1/2 hours to Winston-Salem and checked into SECU House on Sunday night, got settled in, caught a quick dinner nearby and relaxed for the evening. Bright and early on Monday morning, pre-op blood and urine tests were done and a meeting with David’s surgeon, Colleen Jay, M.D. was scheduled. We liked Colleen Jay. She came with great credentials, had done multiple living donor kidney transplants in the past and was a no-nonsense, down-to-earth woman. She explained everything carefully without using ‘doc-speak’, answered multiple questions directly and was very reassuring. We were finished at WFB by early afternoon and had the rest of the day to ponder and anticipate. Burger had already had his pre-op testing done and we met up with him and Nancy at SECU House. We had dinner together there and made it an early night. I’ll talk more about SECU House later.
The surgeries were first on the schedule the next morning. We all checked in at 5:15 am and within minutes the initial paperwork was done and we were whisked away to pre-op. Nurses, the anesthesiologist, Dr. Jay and various and sundry other personnel stopped by. WFB is a teaching hospital and med students, interns and residents were among the mix of visitors. David was asked multiple times his name, date of birth, the surgery he was having performed and which kidney was being donated. An intern marked the spot on his abdomen.
When Dr. Jay stopped by, she confirmed the ‘X marks the spot’ was there and once again asked David which kidney. Left! David was all prepped and ready to go. We waited for what seemed like an interminable amount of time (it wasn’t really that long, just seemed it). Thankfully, I was able to accompany him all the way to the Operating Room entrance. My heart was pounding and it took every ounce of strength I could muster up to keep from crying as I kissed him goodbye at the OR door and watched him disappear down the corridor, the doors slowly closing behind the moving gurney. Now, surgery for David and hours of waiting for me.
Both David and Burger were prepped at the same time. Neither seemed nervous outwardly, but I knew they were at least somewhat apprehensive. This was major surgery and a big deal. Adjoining surgical suites allowed the easy transfer of David’s healthy left kidney to be carried to Burger’s surgeon,Dr. Farney, who would be transplanting the kidney into Burger. While I was left to sit and wait for next 5-6 hours, David remembers chatting with the OR staff while all was made ready. Then he remembers nothing. He was under general anesthesia and intubated when Dr. Jay did her surgical magic.
Once Burger was wheeled into the OR, Nancy joined me in the waiting room and the long wait began. We made small talk to pass the time and settle most of the world’s problems. We picked at breakfast in the hospital cafeteria and returned to the waiting room, wishing away the minutes and hours. A monitor in the waiting room identified patients by assigned numbers and we watched impatiently as the messages changed from pre-op, to procedure and finally post-op/recovery.
A note here… David was required to take off his wedding band for the surgery which he never does…. for good reason, it doesn’t come off. The OR nurse indicated she had some tricks for removing it and would put it in a bag marked with David’s name. I was a bit skeptical, we’d see it again. Not to worry, she promised to guard it. Shortly after the surgery began, the same OR nurse called me to let me know she’d been successful in removing David’s ring and she was guarding it personally. A couple of hours later, she ducked into the waiting room and gave me a hug and the ring. A small thing, perhaps, but it was such a reassuring, thoughtful gesture.
Dr. Jay found me in the waiting room. She was smiling as she hugged me and said all went well. David was in recovery and I’d be able to see him in an hour or two once he was moved to his hospital room. The Recovery Room nurse called 30 minutes later and said David was doing great and just waking up. ‘Could I speak to him?’ The next thing I knew I heard David, hoarse and groggy, reassuring me that he was doing just fine… and in a personal joke between the two of us, was not ‘weak’, i.e. I shouldn’t consider getting too bossy.
I met him in his hospital room a couple of hours later. He looked a bit worse for the wear and was definitely in pain, but he smiled when he saw me and I met him with a kiss. A sign was hanging on his hospital door.
A sign was hung on David’s Hospital room door.
Within a couple of hours, we would learn that David’s kidney, now Burger’s, was working like a champ (‘peeing like a race horse’ was the actual quote), and Burger was now in recovery and doing well. So far, so good.
Click here for the final blog in the series: Recovery, Return and Retrospective