Guts on film

Here's a photo of Sarah's kidneys from a spiral CT.

The light blue arrow points to my left kidney, the teal arrow to my liver and the green to my right lung. Pretty odd seeing oneself from this perspective.

Smile :)

Here's a funny picture from our one night stay at the hospital 1 1/2 weeks ago...

We were pretty surprised to notice that the pillow case on Mom's bed at the University of Maryland was actually from Doctor's Community Hospital, in Lanham, Maryland. Mom worked as a registered nurse in the ER at Doctor's.

Happy Birthday, Kathryn!!!

Today is my aunt Kathryn's birthday, best wishes for a great day and I'll see you tonight!

In unrelated news, here's the kidney update...

I sent in my urine this morning to check the calcium level. I expect the results by Tuesday, which is coincidentally the day the transplant committee meets. Hopefully we'll know by Wednesday if Mom and I are a go for surgery. Matt is sending his blood in on Monday to check the antibody status. In the meantime, we're evaluating offers of cadaveric kidneys as they come in, and we'll re-evaluate our openness to that option on Wednesday.

The weather in Baltimore is beautiful, sunny and warm. Mom is continuing to do a great job with her diet and exercise. She had an ankle injury last week that seems to be healing well. Work is very busy, as usual, working on a new set of experiments and attending in the Hopkins newborn nursery (where the heathy-ish newborns reside). Nathan is working hard, too (starting at 5 am some days) at his new company. Ally and Dora are eating too much of the spring grass, causing me to run around the yard in my pajamas yelling at them to spit out grass. At least it gives the neighbors something to laugh about, I guess. Matt is working six days a week on his current film, "When in Rome," a Disney production and riding his new bike to work in Brooklyn.

-sarah

home again

we're home, with only 4 kidneys between us. the cadaveric kidney was not up to snuff, a problem with the flushing procedure when it was harvested. we have to schedule an MRI with dialysis as an outpatient for mom, and i have to do another 48 hour urine. that's all the news that's fit to print.

limbo

mom and i went to umms for our "final" testing today. i still had one test pending, my 48 hour urine collection. we found out tonight that it was abnormal. my doctor wants me to do it again, but is in now way certain that the repeat will be normal. for now, i am not approved. we will not be having surgery 4/23.

then mom got a call tonight. someone died at 5:30 am today (4/15) and a kidney was offered for donation. they are doing a cross match right now, and we're waiting for the results. we should know in a few hours. we will try our best to update this site as soon as we know anything.

keep us in your prayers,
love,
sarah

the urine's in the mail...

well, i completed my 48 hour litholink urine collection, and mailed it back to the company yesterday. it was pretty fun, carrying a jug of pee around the icu during my week of 14 hour night shifts. i'm going to call tomorrow and try to get them to put a rush on the results. less than 2 weeks until surgery day...

i'm off this weekend so mom and i are planning to go shopping for fun things for our stay at chez umms. perhaps fuzzy slippers and matching house coats. don't want our hineys showing in the skimpy hospital gowns. i ordered us matching bags online but they're backordered until 4/23 (ironically enough).

on monday we meet with dr bartlett, mom's surgeon, for the first time. we've met with 3 surgeons so far. mine, and 2 others that work at the transplant division, but aren't doing our surgery. we're making a list of questions for him. tuesday is pre-op day, and an appointment with the anesthesiologist(s).

on a completely un-kidney related note, i'm really thankful that this week of nights is over. i haven't seen nathan since last weekend and i really miss him. the dogs, however, are in heaven--they're only alone for a few minutes in the morning and an hour in the evening.
sarah

day of a thousand tests

First, some very good news--Mom had blood work 4/1 and there wasn't any worsening of her BUN/creatinine, so there shouldn't be a need for dialysis before surgery.

Nathan and I spent Thursday 4/3 at the hospital for more donor evaluation testing. It was a very long day, and started early in the morning.

The first order of the day was a CT-angio. This is a special scan to evaluate the number of arteries and veins connected to each kidney. Usually there is one of each, but some people have more. Mine are normal with one each. The technician thought he saw a stone on the scan, which brought on an awful sense of dread. I had a kidney stone in 2003 and if I had additional stones on the CT I would likely be excluded from donating.

Next was an appointment with a social worker for an hour, followed by more blood and urine tests. Nathan and I (and two other potential donors) met with a nurse educator. She told us some more details about the surgery process. Then I went to a different building for a chest x-ray. Since I was at this hospital for medical school and residency (8 years in all) I knew how to get a copy of my CT scan. I used Nathan's MacBook to go view my scans--no stone that I could see. Finally at about 5 pm we met with my surgeon, and he agreed, no stone.

However, he was concerned about my history of a kidney stone. He ordered two 24-hour urine collections to make sure there are no metabolic reasons I would form more stones in the future. Having a kidney stone could be more dangerous in a patient with only one kidney, if it wasn't treated expeditiously. I'm working 6p-8a nights all week, so it looks like I'm going to be carrying a big jug of urine to the hospital...
Sarah