Surprise Surgery

On Tuesday morning I had an appointment to see what kind of surgery would be done. Turns out, my kidney function did not improve the way we hoped after the drain was put in - from 17 to only 18%. The doctors didn't expect this to change as the kidney never developed properly (perhaps you can make out the difference between my left (good) and right (bad) ones in the picture). They did expect problems down the road if I chose to keep the right one, but I thought it would be better to remove the blockage.

After the appointment, I barely made it to school in time for my first day back. It went well. I made arrangements for the next 4-6 weeks because that is how long they said I would have to wait for the surgery. The school has been really good about arranging things for me. Everything was on track for the next month or so.

The next day, I got a call at the end of the afternoon asking if I could come in for the operation in the morning. I was a bit shocked. Hadn't even decided which operation to do - remove the blockage, or remove the kidney. The doctors seemed unanimous that it should be the kidney, so I took their advice, told the school I would unexpectedly be gone for another three weeks, and showed up early the next morning.

Everything went better than expected. The surgeon said there was almost no blood internally, and the infection was gone, so they didn't need a drain. They used robotics to keep the incisions small and halve the recovery time. I didn't even need the antibiotics, but they gave them anyway. Surprisingly, my overall kidney function did not take a hit after losing the right side. Turns out that if I would have waited, their next opening wasn't until December!

I stayed in the hospital until Sunday. It was rough on the girls, but thankfully, Claire was able to drive up Saturday night and she will be staying with us for about a week. What a big help!!

See the difference?

I got a whole room to myself for a couple days!

The best meal. Deliciously bland.