"Official" Transplant Date Set - Monday, Feb. 26th

The transplant coordinator gave my folks the official word today that their surgery is scheduled for Monday, Feb 26th at 8am at MCV Gateway in Richmond, VA - assuming my mom passes all her final tests. My dad is 100% done with all his pre-op testing and appointments.

My mom needs to have meetings with the following people next week:

1. Anesthesiologist
2. Nephrologist
3. Social Worker
4. Chief Surgeon

Then she needs to have 2 tests done:

1. Abdominal CT
2. Radiological Stress Test

Dad is meeting next week with:

1. Primary Nephrologist Surgeon
   

Assuming all goes OK with those tests, the 4 of us report to MCV at 5am on Monday the 26th. Mom and dad will go into surgery at 8am. Jen and I will get updates at 9:30am, 10:30am and 11:30am. We won't have our cell phones, but I will call my husband from the hospital and he will be posting the details on this blog after each hourly update.

They will both be having open surgery for the following reasons: "the laparoscopy is something the surgeons do, but they prefer what they call "open" surgery because, they basically just take the kidney out, and close you up - total surgery time is only about 2 hours. The laparoscopy surgery time is about 6 hours! The transplant surgeons prefer to do the open surgery because the 'open/surgery' time is shorter and they can get the kidney to Duni faster! If they went the laparoscopy route, my mom's kidney would be exposed to the 'air' much, much longer, meaning by the time it gets to Duni, you have somewhat negated the quick live-donor-to-recipient edge."

Expectations for my mom's recovery:

They will make about a 4 inch incision under the first rib (preferred left-side) under the breast, remove the kidney, then sew her up internally and put 'duct' tape on the outside! She will be in the hospital about 3-4 days. When she gets home they want her to move - walk, go to Wal-Mart, whatever she wants. If she is not experiencing tremendous pain, they want her to take Tylenol. The prescription for pain is Percocet. That has a minute amount of codeine in it and people with intolerance's to codeine, like my mom, say they don't experience any problems. They do recommend taking 1-2 Percocets at bedtime just to ensure a good night's sleep.

Expectations for my dad's recovery:

We will get more information next Wed after his meeting with the surgeon. Although, don't hold your breath for details, Duni has a tendency to let important info go in one ear and out the other:) As far as we've been told up to this point, the procedure is similar to my mom's, but the recovery time is twice as long to give the new kidney a chance to become fully integrated into the body's filtration system. They will both be home from the hospital within 7 days of the transplant. Jen will stay in Richmond for 10 days and I will be in and out as often as needed.