At the end of March 2010 I took a trip East to Pennsylvania and New Jersey to visit with my brothers and sisters for a week. Lucy didn’t want to go on the 500-mile trip so I went by myself. It was a trip that had many God moments, as I call it. Visiting people and even having my dialysis time changed to make things easier for the rest of the trip.
My dialysis times were Saturday and Tuesday but on Monday I called early in the morning and they had a vacancy so I had dialysis that day which let me freely visit for the rest of the day and then go home on Wednesday. It was a worthwhile trip and I felt that God was with me many times throughout.
The trip home was at night so there was not much traffic. I got home around 8 o’clock Wednesday morning.
A week later, on Saturday, April 10, I got a phone call at 7:30 a.m. from Diane, a nurse at OSU Medical Center in Columbus. There was a kidney available and Dr. Rajab says it’s a perfect match, would I be interested?
I hesitated, and Diane noticed it. I told her I was still stinging from last year’s experience when I had a transplant which failed due to complications. I was in the hospital for four months. I don’t know if I’m ready for another go.
But by the end of the conversation I agreed to have them go through with it. She didn’t know all the particulars about it but would let us know when she got more information. She called later and gave us more info and then I gave her my cell phone number.
Later that evening, around 6:30, she called again and said that the surgery would be at 8:00 a.m. Sunday, and I was to come to OSU tonight. It just so happened that Minerva, Lucy’s niece, had some business in Columbus and she took me down to the hospital, a 75 mile trip.
I checked in and soon got a room. Doctors, nurses, technicians, and aides came to get my medical history, which is extensive, and get vials of blood.
I had a Permcath placed a couple months ago which was used for dialysis and they used it to take blood from my system. I did not have a needle stick throughout my stay at the hospital.
Lucy wanted to be with me before surgery but didn’t know if she would be able to be there before 8:00 a.m. but then I got word that there was a delay until 10:30 and I relayed the news to her. She was on her way and relieved that she could be here to be with me, and then there was another delay, until noon. We just waited.
Dr. Rajab’s assistant came to tell me about the latest delay and I asked him about the kidney. He said he wasn’t at liberty to talk about it but he did say that it was from a young man about a third my age, and it was a perfect match. The kidney was coming from Florida and would be at the airport at 11:30 and a helicopter would bring it to the hospital.
Finally, I was taken down to the OR. Dr. Rajab was asked what the delay was and he commented about red tape. Where did that kidney come from? I never found out but later he did tell me it was imported. From where, he wouldn’t or couldn’t say.
I was wheeled into the OR and I don’t remember falling asleep but I woke up over three hours later and then was taken to the “Presidential Suite”, actually two rooms where one had the bed and the other had a cabinet with a large TV, a sofa and side table with a telephone. I was taken into the second room to the hospital bed. I don’t know if there are any other suites like that in the hospital.
The next step was administering the immuno suppressant medicine—intravenously. During the process my whole body contracted and I had almost excruciating pain, which they said is common during the first dose. There were three doses over the day and by that time there was no pain during the process. The next step would be to take pills for the rest of my life in order to keep the kidney from being rejected.
A nurse coordinator told me that, since the kidney is a perfect match, in a year I should be able to have the immuno suppressant medicine reduced quite a bit.
I met a number of nurses that I had seen the year before and they were glad to see me. To them, I am a model patient, their favorite, some said. They were quite pleased with the progress I was making and by Friday I was ready to go home. They took the Permcath out of my left shoulder, and then holding the site for a half hour to prevent bleeding, placed a bandage over where it had been.
On Friday they got a wheelchair to take me down to the lobby to go home and as I passed by the nurses’ station, they all—all 10 of them—stood up and wished me well. I almost cried.
Lucy was waiting with Minerva, her niece, who was driving, and I finally was home and starting a new life, as it were. Retired, no dialysis, and trying to find how to handle it all.
