Same as the last few days: the baby surgeons, unsupervised by a mother hen, come by first. I don’t think there is a pecking order when mama hen isn’t there, but that doesn’t stop the surgeon mentality of each trying to take the lead. They noticed a bleeder from Amanda’s incision and said they’d come later to take care of it, maybe by removing a staple to address the issue. I slept in pretty well; I took something to make sure of it! So, I was still in my chair bed, didn’t even get up for the babies, and kept pondering life as I was waking up when they got here.
The baby nephrology team was next. Mama hen, the one who commented on my boots, was gone this go-around. She came back solo later with the same sentiment as the team. They still weren’t ready to pull the trigger on dialysis just yet. Which I thought was surprising, with her creatinine going up today after it had been hanging around the same level. They didn’t seem to be too concerned and said it would stay that way until the urine output picked up. I asked about dialysis: whether we’d do it at home or at the center. Any sessions would be done at the hospital, she said. I’m praying hard the kidney wakes up, though.
The surgeon, one we hadn’t seen yet, another woman, came back with the little chicks in tow. No figuring out who the boss is when she was there; she had the full surgeon mentality! Given the slow urine output, I think we’re officially dealing with what’s called delayed graft function. It is very common in deceased donor kidneys. Living-donor kidneys wake up a lot more easily. The slushiness after waking up can last for a few days, weeks, or even months. If there’s any specific pointed prayer request, it is that the new kidney wakes up and that the dialysis session Amanda did the day before the transplant will be the last she needs.
The surgeon said with the low output we wouldn’t be getting out over the weekend. I badly wanted to say, “Well, your little chicks say we could go home tomorrow, or maybe even today,” but I held my tongue. I knew better when they mentioned anything about today. We’ve done this too much; discharges can be the most frustrating thing for patients, especially when you’ve been in the hospital a long time. As a health care professional, you should never give false hope at discharge and never project unless it’s pretty solid. It is such a volatile thing to gauge, and it is really a disappointment when you end up staying longer.
I was in Job this morning reading. There’s a verse in chapter 13 that goes “Though he slay me, I will hope in Him.” Job refused to curse God even though he had lost everything. I sit today on what I hope is the downhill side of the hardest trial of our lives, and if you’ve followed us long, you know that’s saying a lot. I sit now in answered prayers and even provisions that I didn’t even pray for. We are nearing the end of this road, it seems. So you may say, well, of course you can say you hope in him from the mountaintop. If you’ve followed us long enough, you know we’ve had to stand under the banner of, though he slay me, I will hope in Him, plenty in the valley, though. As Charles Stanley says, “God is either worth trusting all the way to the end, or He’s not worth trusting at all.”
We are in a place where we don’t know what will happen with this delayed graft function. Though things are looking good, the future is unknown. No matter what happens, we’re ready to praise Him through it all. Not because we have great faith or anything of us, but because we know that this trial is light and momentary in light of the eternity that awaits. All things may not be good, but all things are worked for good for those who are called according to God’s purpose. If you’re reading this in a trial or a hard time, don’t lose heart. Stay the course, keep on praying, serving, and following in obedience. Whatever you’re in right now, it’s not the end. Whatever you’re facing, no matter how hard it is, it is only upon you for a fleeting moment in the grand scheme of things. Amanda and I don’t look to the seen, but the unseen for our hope, as Paul says. Yet, we’ve been in trials long enough; I think I’ve seen some of what the unseen realm can produce: the bad become good, despair turned to joy, suffering produce hope, only because of God, what He can do, and how He can work all for good.
There is a song titled after this verse in Job by Shane and Shane. In the middle of the song, with the strumming of an acoustic in the background, they include an excerpt from a John Piper sermon that is just fire. It’s worth a listen. The chorus of the song goes:
Though You slay me
Yet I will praise You
Though You take from me
I will bless Your name
Though You ruin me
Still I will worship
One of the surgical team came back to the care of the incision. This one is a younger woman, tall and big-boned, but not fat (insert Cartman meme!). An Amazon-woman physique; let’s just say I wouldn’t want to be punched by her! She is the most Debbie-downer-looking thing, though. So, I named her Wednesday, as in The Addams Family’s Wednesday. I’m not sure what her role is, but she looks like she hates her job, but that’s just her face, I think! She is always on the floor; I’m assuming she is a resident. That’s probably why she looks so downtrodden.
She seemed to perk up a bit when she got some tools out to work on Amanda’s incisions. Perked up, as in she looked like she still wanted to jump off a bridge, just a lower one! She did talk a bit when she was trying to figure out her approach. The good news was that her first order of business was to remove the JP drain tube. This is what had been bothering Amanda so much. After that, she was fiddling around with the incisions; she couldn’t find a spot to pack or stitch. She did end up taking a staple out, to no avail; it didn’t even open up for her to be able to pack anything. She had Amanda put her thumb in her mouth and blow to do a “pressure” test, so to speak. No blood came out, so we were good to go without any packing or stitches, she thought.
Amanda has been resistant to drinking. I’d finally had it and jumped on her about it. I don’t have middle ground; I’m nice, then I’m not. Not a good quality. I wasn’t nice; I was done with her not wanting to drink. She was balking me, and I told her, you need to drink like you don’t ever want to do dialysis again! She said it was hard and hurt. I had to be a tough-love coach and say, look, you’ve been through worse; suck it up and drink! I finally left it, but it must have worked because he ended up drinking a good bit!
Sam, Bev’s husband, was on Tank duty this morning. I got a text with a picture of Tank in the dog park with Bev saying, “Might not get Sam back for a while!” We have a harness for Tank, and Sam has a really hard time with it. I don’t think he’s been there solo for a walk yet. So, Bev said she had to teach him how to put it on, saying, “Tank gets the ‘breastplate of righteousness’ to help him remember how to put it on!” All four of them Bev, Sam, and their two daughters, Claire and Sophia have been great at stepping in to take care of Tank for us. Amanda happened to check the Ring last night and saw Sophia had moved the pillows off the loveseat so Tank could get up there with her!
Some of our friends from church, Sarah and Chris, came by. I had asked Chris to help me limp the Suburban back to the apartment, and Sarah was going to stay with Amanda while we did that. We chatted for a bit, but didn’t waste time leaving. It was a 45-minute drive to the car, then about an hour to the apartment, plus any repairs we might have to make or stops to top off the coolant. We got just on the outskirts of Nashville, and I realized I didn’t have the keys to the Suburban! So, a quick delay to head back to the hospital to pick them up from Sarah, who brought them down for us.
The friend of a friend who got the belts on moved the Burb to the Chevrolet dealership. He had just bought an SUV from them, and I’m assuming he got the salesman to give him a ride. I didn’t ask; he’s the one that wheeled up on the side of the road, tossed me his keys, and said he could talk himself in anywhere, so who knows! The dealership was a much better spot than the rest area. I was a little worried the Burb is my work truck and I have a ton of tools in it, plus since I was going to the hospital I couldn’t carry my pistol with me and left it in there. With valuables in it, I was worried about leaving it at a random rest area a few nights. I didn’t bring the radiator with me as I’d planned. I really didn’t want to do a roadside replacement of it anyway. The plan was to stop and top off as many times as needed along the way. Once we cranked it up, we tried to find the leak, but it was difficult to pinpoint. Thankfully it wasn’t as bad as I had expected, though. We only stopped once to top it off, and used only one of the six gallons of water I brought! The biggest problem we had was the passenger-side seat belt light kept coming on because of all the water on the front seat!
We were gone a while, getting everything moved around. We popped in the apartment to see Tank, and I fed him while we were there. On the way to the apartment, Sarah texted me to say they gave Amanda a muscle relaxer, so she was zonked out, and that she was getting some drug-induced intense side-eye from her! Amanda is a light sleeper, Sarah said; that was an understatement, and when woken she’ll look over. We made it back with some StarBs for the girls and chatted a while before they left.
Amanda’s appetite is coming back a little. She still doesn’t drink what she should be, though. Amanda must have been dreaming about Cheesecake Factory. She said we talked about it for dinner, but we never did. Either way, I took it as a sign that’s what we should have for dinner and had some delivered! We got our staples, no menu needed.
After dinner, we went for a walk; I pushed her farther than ever before. She is still considerably slower in the evenings, but did good. We had the same nurse who was a bit of a pill from a couple of nights ago. I never even got into it with her, but I could tell she doesn’t like me; the feeling was mutual, so we just steered clear of each other!
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