The Saline Jungle
The first step that is usually included in every hospital stay is getting an IV put in your arm and getting a bag of saline dripping. This is to keep you hydrated while in the hospital. It is usually the last thing to be removed as well. This was true for me as well. But I also got something additional. I can't remember the name exactly, but it was called something like a "triple J-port." This was a special IV that had three different lines going in at different points along the tube inserted into my neck. Yep, thats right, my neck. It went into the jugular artery and was several inches above my heart. This was to put a particular immune-suppressing drug into my system that was too hard on the veins in the arm. It needed to be immediately dispersed through my body. But in addition to that they had a very large number of other saline bags attached to me, all daisy chained together to go through the triple J port. The strangest combination of fluids going in was a dextrose saline bag, essentially sugar water. But to make sure my sugar levels didn't get too high, there was also a bag containing insulin. This counteracts the sugar. I thought I would show you a picture of my "IV Tree" with all the bags of saline. In this picture, I count 8 different saline bags, each with their own pump, plus the monitor hookups. Needless to say, I had a lot of tubes and wires going all over the place.
The Respiratory Therapist
One visit I did not expect or know about was the respiratory therapist. I did know the hospital staff would bring the breathing device that everyone gets in the hospital to avoid pneumonia, where you have to breath in and watch two little devices rise up to the top. But the respiratory therapist was completely different. This man came in to room about 7pm and introduced himself. He said he was the respiratory therapist and had a treatment for me to do. I watched as he pulled a little tube out of his pocket and began to fill a small container with greenish fluid. Then he hooked it up to an oxygen line and connected the two together somehow, on one end it had a mouth piece and the other end a round hole. Finally he hooked up a large blue tube to the end of the bottle of green fluid through the round hole. He told me to put one end in my mouth and breathe normally. Then he turned on the oxygen and I began my first breathing treatment. As I breathed in a smoky mist would enter into my lungs and when I exhaled the smoky mist would shoot out the end of the blue tube. It really looking liked I was smoking some new fangled pipe. I laughed to myself as I tried to blow smoke rings out the blue tube while the respiratory therapist wasn't looking. I was unsuccessful. This treatment was supposed to happen every 4-5 hours, so I had a total of five treatments while in the ICU. I would say the 4am treatment was the most unpleasant. Here is a dark picture of me having a breathing treatment. I didn't turn on a light and didn't have a flash.
The Exercise Class
Anyone who has been in the hospital overnight knows that you never sleep very well because almost every hour the nurse comes in and has to do something. Draw blood, check vitals, change saline bags, or check on something. I had one really great ICU nurse named Stephanie. She was one of the best nurse experiences I had. I spent some time talking to her every time she came in the room. It was like clockwork. Every hour on the hour she would come in, I would usually be awake or wake up. I had a slew of questions to ask her about my condition and what was to happen next. I have been reading this book by Malcolm Gladwell called "Blink." It is all about the split second decisions that we make and how we can know if we will like a person in the first moments of meeting them. Stephanie was one that I knew instantly that I would like. She just had a presence about her that was comforting and made it feel that every thing was going to be okay. So I almost immediately trusted her. I had her take pictures of all the things I couldn't see, like the IV in my neck, my staples on my belly where the new kidney had been inserted, and then asked her about all of them. Once it started to get late, I didn't have as many questions and slept a little more. But since I had taken so many naps throughout the day, I did wake up at 2am when she came in the room and had trouble going back to sleep. After she left I just quietly sat in my room thinking about a lot of things. After awhile I heard a lot of giggling and laughing going on at the nurses' station outside my room. Some people think it is impolite that doctors and nurses laugh while at the hospital, but I love it and know that it is needed. They are around so many stressful situations involving life and death that laughter can be a great stress reducer. But this was not one of those times. As I lay in bed trying desperately to listen and look through my plaid curtain that was pulled shut, I could see a very faint outline of nurses in the hallways. In the ICU, there are sliding glass doors for every room so you can really see out. I could see nurses lined up, walking past my room, but they weren't walking they were doing power lunges and raising their hands in the air. I don't know how many nurses were out there power lunging together at 2:30am, but I figured it was about 6-8 of them. After the power lunges came stretching and other calisthenics. I thought that was great! I don't know if that is a regular occurrence or not but I thought it was probably a good use of time at 2:30 in the morning to keep alert and have a good time. I tried to take some pictures of the exercise class, but they don't show much. Here is one of the pictures I took at 2:30am. I know it is really hard to see anything in this photo, but you could see the movements with the fluorescent lights in the background.
Room number: North 376
After the ICU I was moved to the regular floor of the hospital. The day after my kidney transplant I was actually up and walking around the hospital at 11am. Then I walked from my room in the ICU to room North 376. Scripps green hospital is divided up into North, West and South. Actually I have only seen West and North now that I think about it. I guess Scripps Green East is the fountain and coffee cart out front. Well, actually I made a stop before I reached N376, I stopped in N377. The room next door to mine. Because in N377 was my donor recovering from his surgery, minus one kidney. He was in his room, me pushing a wheelchair, a nurse following me with my IV tree. We were stoked to see each other. It was awesome. We were both still on pretty heavy pain killers, in fact we each had our own PCA. PCA stands for Patient-controlled analgesia, which means we have a little button that when it turns green we can push it and morphine is injected into us. So you can control your own pain level. After you push the button you have to wait a predetermined amount of time before the light turns green again. I had to wait six minutes before I was given the green light. Studies have shown that a PCA actually makes the patient feel much better and they use considerably less pain medication then when administered by a nurse. So after I visited with my donor for a couple of minutes I went to my room right next door. It was great having a friend next door to me. He would walk over into my room sometimes and once we actually ate our liquid diet dinner in the same room. It made the hospital stay and pain recovery fun. We were both required to take walks to make the healing process faster and get us moving. When one of us was ready to go for a walk, the first place we stopped was the other's room to see if the other wanted to go with us. We almost always did. So we would walk around 3 North, a short loop that has nothing to look at. But talking was great.
"How is your pain?"
"Oh, dude it hurts so bad when I get up or sit down."
"What about you?"
"Same here."
"Oh dude your green light just came on."
"Sweet!"
Little conversations like that were regular. But we had many topics of recovery and working kidney production to discuss as well. We laughed, even though it hurt, about the little things that had happened to us, or the lack of sleep we got. It made the whole kidney transplant and donation something more special. I realized that my donor and I have a special bond that is like no other in life. We all experiences different bonds in our lives, family, siblings, marriage, friends. But this is a bond that few get to experience. One sacrificing part of themselves, to give life to another. It is so special to me and I know that my donor likes it too. I will never forget this time in my life, and I doubt my donor will either. Even as I write this I feel that words do not express the bond. It is only one that can be experienced. It is like trying to describe what being a father is like to someone with out children. You just have to experience it.
Thanks dude for your amazing gift. I will be forever changed.
