One week ago

I can't believe how quickly this week has gone! Holly and I were saying it's a week today that the operation was. In fact it was almost at this time last week the the kidney was being put into Holly!

Anyway, I thought I'd write a quick recap of this last week for you.

Friday morning was the op and apart from walking to the recovery room I don't really remember much. We were given a dodgy batch of antibiotics before the surgery that we both reacted to with very itchy hair! That wasn't a good start. Apart from that all I remember is waking up and hurting quite a bit and then I remember waking up again in the ward when Holly was being wheeled in. Apparently I was talking gibberish but I think the morphine had something to do with that.

Friday night I was woken up roughly every 2 hours and each time I thought it was the morning and time to get up :( Thankfully I had a little button that administered morphine to help me get back to sleep! You've got to love that!

Saturday and Sunday kind of merge into each other and I can't remember what happened on what day. I remember that on Saturday night I had a bad stomach ache from feeling bloated (pain killer's side effects) and it was also causing my scar to hurt but by Sunday night I was able to walk about and I wasn't attached to anything! That was a very nice feeling. Made me feel normal again. There were also lots of visits from friends and family that helped pass the time.

Monday was mostly spent sat on an armchair next to Holly with a blanket over our knees watching people walk past like an old couple until I was finally allowed to go home with a load of medicines. I will never again complain that paracetamol doesn't work.

Holly came home on Thursday which was a really nice surprise as everyone was expecting her to be in hospital until after the weekend! I think now we are both looking forward to doing nothing and resting up until the whole healing process is over. I'm quite lucky in that I seem to have healed really quickly (the surgeon said he has never seen anyone heal so fast after this op). But, it still hurts to use my stomach muscles.

I have a follow up appointment and will be joining Holly for hers next week. Hopefully the doctors will be nodding approvingly at all the results. Fingers crossed!

All is well!

Well, the op was last Friday! I woke up in lots of pain but morphine is gooood! :)

Everything went really well. I am now back at Holly's parent's house recovering and will be here until my follow up app on the 30th.

Holly is still in hospital but is walking around and feeling a lot better every day! The doctors are all nodding approvingly at large amounts of wee!!!

Just a short note for now before I fall asleep but there will be an update tomorrow.

One week!

I can't believe how quickly the past few weeks. When the date was first set it was in 2 month's time. Then suddenly it was in 6 week's time. Then 5, 4, 3, 2 weeks went past as quickly as days. It has really flown by.

Today I realised that it's no longer weeks. I will be in hospital NEXT Thursday!

I've been thinking a lot about the whole thing and I try to keep myself busy so I can take a break from it. Like Holly, I've been contemplating millions of 'what ifs' and 'buts' and people have been asking me questions like 'why?', 'how?', 'what for?', etc...

What I have found really helpful in trying to get over some of these questions is to explain to people why I have decided to do this and what will happen afterwards. It not only helps other people to understand my thoughts but it also helps to clear them up for myself.

I'm feeling nervous and excited for next week. Nervous for the fact that I am going into surgery that I don't actually need but excited by the fact that I will be helping someone in ways that are unbelievable but also excited about the thought of experiencing something unique and new that I have never been through before. OK, I have had surgery before more times than the average person but it has always been essential surgery that I needed at the time.

The final cross match was negative again which is a good thing so everything is going ahead as planned. I have to be in hospital by 2:30pm next Thursday so, apart from actually driving down to London, everything is set.

I found a really cool website the other week, I Heart Guts, and got Holly a small present. They have some really cool stuff there and have kindly linked back to our blogs!