Jasmine, Calista, and I have had coughs and colds, which in itself wouldn’t be too bad. However, Jasmine on dialysis is more vomity than usual and wakes up at 4am all congested which leads to vomiting and so we are starting the day very early at the moment. She is attached to the machine for 12 hours now which is less than we used to have but can still seem like a long time.
So, we have a portable DVD player which we put in her cot to distract her from the waiting and the vomiting. Calista enjoys watching it too whilst we wait for the magical message ‘End of therapy’ which starts our day (along with disconnecting, observations, washing the vomit out of her hair, etc). Kung Fu Panda is our favourite even if we do watch it twice every morning before we get up.
Today we went along and met the transplant surgeon. He seemed very nice but, he had to tell us about the not nice risks of transplant: loss of donor, patient, kidney. We have been aware of these from the word go but somehow when someone is sitting telling you in measured tones, it is frightening.
I just had to stop typing there as Jasmine was throwing up in the cot as she is back on the machine now. When you see her vomit as violently and painfully and frequently as she does, you know that she needs Neil’s kidney and we just have to press on.
Then we got onto the practicalities of the transplant process. They do a lot of clever stuff during and after the operation which was explained to us but now as I write this blog I am a bit hazy on the actual details of what I was told (I think I was in shock) and will have to read up. But just as a quick example, Jasmine will more than likely have to have a blood transfusion during the operation as they need to keep her blood pressure up. They wash the antibodies out of the blood so that her body doesn’t react to the new blood or vice versa and cause rejection and she will also be on a massive dose of immunosuppressants straight after the operation which will be reduced gradually until they get the right dose.
So to protect Jasmine which is the most important thing, we are following the surgeon’s recommendations of no visitors to the hospital whilst Jasmine is an inpatient and no public transport when Jasmine is an outpatient visiting the hospital daily.
After this meeting, we were exhausted so we got a cab home. I think I may have cried all the way, Neil was a total star, as usual, and Jasmine threw up on her little pink book in which we record all her feed, vomits and poos. So the book smells just like our carpet which I am now going to clean again.