Month +11: Worth The Effort. Wellness means different things for different. Remember, even the best laid plans take time to develop, and life is what we make it.
Tag: CKD
Month +4: So This is Recovery?
+4 Months: For most people, when you say you're recovering from something, they typically think of you returning to normal, or at least to how you were before you got sick. But in reality there is no going back. You don't so much recover as reinvent yourself as you adapt to the person you have since become.
Day +98: Sorry I Forgot…
They say that you don't realise how sick you are until you try to recover. Now I don't know who they are but they make a damn good point. Recovering from this transplant is both an enforced period of rest, as well as an opportunity to do some serious reflection, but the thing is, I can't remember.
Day +10: Origins
Day +10: Origins. In contrast to my outward facing 'fitness freak' persona, many have asked how I ended up chronically ill and eventually on the slab receiving a kidney transplant. The story began two decades ago and my my eventual diagnosis which was due the curiosity of a particular GP I saw by chance and his desire to do good by his patients. Thursday was a day where I was waiting and did practically nothing - this is an appropriately long read.
Day +5: Drugs and Blessed Relief
My life had already irrevocably changed for the better, but there was a lot of information still to take in. The staff knew it was front-loading their patients and to take it easy by drip feeding the essential aspects of their care that was to be self-administered. The Doctor warned me that I was now a very different beast from the one that entered hospital seven days earlier and that it would take some getting used to.
Day +1: Beyond All Odds
Things are starting to calm down. I can't get dressed or get to the toilet unassisted but I'm counting my lucky stars and at this rate, running out of room in the sky.
Day 0: The Transplant
Anyone who has had a major operation will know that all dignity is left at the door. I warn you that I will include details that may make you squirm, but these are the events as they occurred. Urinary catheters and all.
Update: Fistula Formation
After a very strange and subdued COVID-19 spring, yesterday I was admitted to hospital for an operation to have a dialysis fistula formed in my arm.
Coming Home
Today I started my new routine of dialysis from the comfort of my own home. Frequent dialysis is better dialysis, however the treatment provided at the kidney unit really is the minimum they can get away with; roughly the equivalent of a single kidney working at about 5% capacity. Since lockdown I had been receiving … Continue reading Coming Home
Preparing For The Long Run
Perhaps the Dali Lama was right when he said that not getting what you want is sometimes a wonderful stroke of luck? #TeamKidney
#R24TRC 