Kidney Transplant

My mom was diagnosed with Type 1 diabetes when I was 7 years old.  It has been a rough road for her ever since.  36 years of illness takes it's toll on the body.  About 18 months ago my mom's kidneys began to fail and she had to start dialysis, which she absolutely hated!  When my sister, Tara, volunteered to donate one of her kidneys for a kidney transplant, my mom was ecstatic.

Last night of dialysis

Well, Tuesday was the big day.  Everyone had high hopes that things would go smoothly,.  We also had our concerns.  Mom had been so feeble for so long that I wondered if she would even survive the surgery.

Turns out our concerns were warranted. The surgery ended up being very difficult. There were several complications.  My mom's previous appendectomy made it impossible to reach the place where they had intended to connect the kidney.  In moving around the organs to get to the right spot, her colon tore and had to be repaired.  Then the veins, where they were trying to connect the new kidney, were basically falling apart.  Mom lost a lot of blood, so they had to give her a few units.  The doctors finally got it all connected and working properly, but the surgery took hours longer than anticipated.  When I arrived at the waiting room I could tell my dad was extremely worried.  We were all nervous. Instead of being taken to a surgical recovery room, mom went to the ICU.  Not how we had hoped things would go.

ICU

The next morning she seemed alright, but when they tried to get her up walking she may have had a minor stroke.  She couldn't stand, and became confused, unable to remember where she was, how to read, who people were.  We became very nervous again.  She was taken for some tests but because she was so restless they were not able to get the images they wanted.  However, she slowly started to improve.  On Friday evening she was moved out of the ICU, yay!

Tara, on the other hand, did great.  What an incredible sacrifice she made for our mom! Thank you Tara!