One Week Post-Discharge from the Hospital

On Friday, July 29, I received a transplanted kidney from a living donor. The surgeon who performed the surgery was Dr. Alp Sener, urologist at the University Hospital, London Health Sciences Centre, London, Ontario. My new kidney immediately began producing urine so Dr. Sener removed the catheter that had placed in my belly for peritoneal dialysis two years earlier. Yay! No additional surgery required.

Dr. Alp Sener

My surgery did not begin until 2 pm, even though I had to be in the hospital at 5:45 am that morning. The medical staff needed to know that I was not ill so that they could go ahead with the removal of the kidney from the donor. It made for a long wait for me, and for my wife, Etsuko, and four children, Rika, Keila, Aisha and Aaron, and for two people from Valleyview Mennonite Church, Alvin M. and Erma K.

The last thing I remember in the operating room before the surgery was that there was a mask placed over my face and I was told to breathe deeply to take in lots of oxygen. Eventually, they must have introduced an anesthetic, because shortly after… I was awake in the Transplant Unit. The four hours of surgery and two hours in the post-surgery recovery area took no time at all by my reckoning.

Since then, one of my main accompaniments has been pain. Having one’s belly cut into is not a minor event. I didn’t sleep much that first night; I know that because a nurse came in and checked me out every hour. Not surprisingly, given we are dealing with a kidney, is that they wanted to see how much urine I was producing. It looked a lot like cranberry juice during those first days.

I’ve been told that one of the keys to a quick recovery is to get the patient moving. So, the next day, I was helped to sit up and make my way to the chair in my room a mere two steps away. It seemed like an almost impossible accomplishment. Then they brought in a scale and I had to stand up and step onto that device. For a guy who had been walking 8-10 kilometres almost every day for the last few years, these small actions seemed like quite a comedown, and yet they were as strenuous as anything I had faced in a long time. From there I graduated over the next few days to a 20 metre jaunt and eventually multiple laps around the unit.

A transplanted kidney likes to be “wet.” Completely contrary to my time on dialysis, then, instead of moderating my fluid intake, I was told to drink a lot, at least two litres of water per day, and on top of that, they were pumping fluids into me via IV throughout the first few days of my stay. When I woke up one morning, I was puffy from top to bottom, including my eyelids. Not a pleasant feeling. I had also gained 10 kilos of water weight. I’m pleased to say that excess water is almost all gone now, though, which makes for a much more comfortable body.

I’m so grateful for all the visitors, several people from church as well as neighbours. I can’t say enough about the importance of that kind of support. On top of that, we are so fortunate to be living nearby the hospital so that visits from my wife and my two London-based children were a possibility. Transplant patients in London come from all over Ontario, which makes that kind of support more of a challenge for those who come from farther away.

Our public health care system is often criticized, but I have to say that my experience has been better than anything I could have expected. The care of the nurses, the twinkle in the eyes of the doctors when they came in day after day, telling me that my new kidney is functioning so very well, the staff who organized this wonderful thing called Paired Kidney Donation. As I heal, I know that I am going to be freer and healthier than I have been in decades. What other response can there be than gratitude?

University Hospital, London Health Sciences Centre

One diagram showing how an undesignated donor can make a difference in many lives.

A quilt of donors hanging in front of the Transplant Unit, showing both living and deceased donors.

I don’t know who donated a kidney directly to me, and I am not meant to know. Patient confidentiality is an important value in the transplant system. But I will write a letter of thanks. Someone I do know is a friend in British Columbia who was willing to enter into the Paired Kidney Donation program, which allowed me to receive a kidney from another living donor. As I understand it, his donation will take place next month, in September. Again, how can I express sufficient gratitude for what he is about to do? There was another friend in BC as well, who was willing to donate, but ultimately was not selected. This willingness to undergo surgery and weeks of recovery in order that I might regain health expresses a degree of altruism and generosity that I find hard to comprehend. What else is there to say to these people except:

Thank You!

Russ