18. February 2008 by Carol.

It appears that my PICC line will be removed tomorrow morning!  Yippee!!!!  No more being tethered to this stuff!  But I still like the idea of having a spiritual PICC line from the Lord to my heart so he can easily and painlessly infuse life into those places where I still lack spiritual strength.  Yet, alas, we usually learn best when things aren’t done easily or painlessly so I’m guessing my wish would not come true (and it would be for my own good).

And for not having to be tethered to a pole and bag of drugs, that is a good thing, too.  That, also, causes me to think about how easily I am tethered to things that only I can release myself from - fear, lack of trust, bad choices and so on.  So even though I bid my pole and bags and tubes a farewell I still need lessons in how to untether myself from so many things that hold me back.

May I learn from all this!  May it be so!

 Thanks for reading.

Posted in A Kidney for Carol - thoughts on the transplant | No Comments »

18. February 2008 by Carol.

It’s 10:30 Sunday night and tomorrow I am planning to return to work full time in the office.  It’s been over two months (much longer than I ever dreamed it would be)  since I’ve worked full time and I must admit I am feeling reticent about it.  Can I make it through 8 hours of work plus do the 1 hour commute each way?  Will I remember how to do certain things at work?  Will I be able to get caught up on all the changes that have been made in the last two months?  I feel like a new employee starting a new job tomorrow…

One of the things I have noticed in these couple of months is that my brain is not as sharp, as quick as it was before.  I am sure I can blame all kinds of things - anesthesia, the plethora of drugs I’m taking (by the way, I’m down to 36 a day now) and their side effects, the fact that my brain hasn’t had the energy to be engaged to much the last number of weeks - yes I can blame all these things.   But tonight I feel myself getting fearful that my brain won’t ever return to it’s former self.

But I know that fear is not from the Lord and that I need to trust him to restore everything that I need to do my job well and maybe even better than ever before now that my kidney function is so much higher.  This is where I get hung up in my faith - the need to trust the Lord for all that I require to do what he has called me to do.  It’s that head/heart thing.  My head knows that trusting the Lord is truth but sometimes my heart defies what I know.    Makes me think about this PICC line I have in me - 51 centimeters (which I think is around 20″) that runs from my left arm to not far from my heart.  Wouldn’t it be nice to have a spiritual PICC line that could run from my head to my heart?  Then perhaps God could infuse those spiritual heart things that I need just like I infused the antibiotic into my blood stream.

Trust is just a five letter word with one syllable but it feels like the longest word in the dictionary to me.  May I learn how to shorten it to it’s proper length and respond with trust as quickly as I can say it.

Thanks for reading.

PS - tomorrow I will learn if I can eliminate the PICC line!  That would be a wonderful thing to eliminate.  I’ll let you know Tuesday.

Posted in A Kidney for Carol - thoughts on the transplant | No Comments »

3. February 2008 by Carol.

And it’s not one I’ve ever thought I’d need or want to learn.  I was discharged from the hospital this afternoon.  Five long days of fighting off high fevers, getting poked for blood tests, x-rays, ultrasounds, procedures and, except for the times I’d have to go for those tests, looking at the same four walls the whole time (I was in isolation) with a constant companion at my side - an IV pole and pump.  People had to wear funny yellow plastic gowns and gloves and some even wore masks so sometimes it felt a bit science fiction-like surreal.

So what did they find out?  I have a mutated e-coli bacteria that is “multi-resistant” which means there’s not much that kills it off.  But there is one thing, though.  It’s an IV administered antibiotic and so that’s where my new skill comes in. 

I came home with a PICC line in my left upper arm.  That is a “peripherally inserted central catheter” that starts in my arm and ends up in my superior vena cava above my heart.  And then I have these two little tubes with IV plug-ins (I don’t know the technical term for these so I do the best I can!) hanging out of my left forearm.  Tomorrow morning a home health nurse is coming to teach me how to use these things.  I will learn how to flush them with saline solution, how to mix the IV medicine and connect it into one of the plugs, how to adjust for and count the “drips” so the drug is going into me at a pre-determined rate, how to remove it, flush the lines again and be happy until I do it again the next day. 

Hey maybe my next job evolution will be as a back up IV nurse, eh??  (just kidding Judi - I’m not going anywhere EVER and especially not nursing!)

But I look at the list of things I will learn tomorrow and I think the hardest one to learn will to “be happy until I do it again the next day…”  I feel like I’ve lost a whole week to fever delerium and procedures and lots and lots of sleep (I was exhausted from the 102 temps I was running most of the day Tuesday).  It was all an unplanned intrusion in my life. When I got home tonight I realized it’s the 2nd of February and I already have monthly bills to pay and so many things to do that I had planned for last week.  And as I look around my house (which is NEVER spotlessly clean) I realized just how fast everything turned around last Monday because I left dishes in the sink and an alarm clock set to go off every 9:30 PM and much more.  It’s all a blur to me now.

So how am I going to be happy everyday when I am so far behind, still very tired from this crazy week and needing to do last week’s things as well as the things I had planned for this week?  It all feels very overwhelming.  But then my friend Laura calls me and says “see you on Monday” as we finished the call.  Monday?  What was Monday?  Apparently she and another friend, Dee, had already planned that they were coming to my house on Monday to help me get my house cleaned up.  Even when I don’t ask I’m still “given unto.”  Thank you Lord!

And I was feeling very squeamish and fearful about this IV thing and doing it myself but then I got to thinking about how I just didn’t think I could pack my post surgical wound and I’ve made it through that  - wasn’t easy at first but now it’s old hat.  So I know that the Lord can help me with this, too. (”I can do all things…”)

And how will I get caught up with all my work both at home and employment related?  I don’t have the answer to that but I know that the Lord knew about last week long before it happened so I am hoping I can get to a place in my heart to trust him to help me get done what I need to complete - no more and no less.

 On a less spiritual note, I discovered that Jaime and I must have made quite an impression last December.  I was on the same floor she and I were on together the night before the surgery as well as where I went to after I left the ICU and so some of the staff I had caring for me this time were the same staff that were there last time.  Several times I had people coming in and they’d look at me and say “I remember you!!!!” and had some story to tell about what they remembered when it was both Jaime and I together or when I was on my own later.   Most of them were pretty funny stories.  In fact a couple of them reminded me of stories I’d forgotten.  I’ll tell you one brief one because it is probably the most amusing:

Jaime and I had a nursing tech named Carlos the night before the surgery.  We knew from the second he walked in the door that he was a “party in a box” and we would have fun with him.  This past week he reminded me of how he had asked Jaime if she had family there (my sister was there so where was Jaime’s family?) and she told him she was married.  So Carlos just blurted out “Does your husband know you’re here and giving away a kidney????”   Oh we had a laugh on that one!  And we teased him unmercifully.

Okay I’m tired of writing and, no doubt, you are tired of reading.  But thanks for reading anyhow.

Posted in A Kidney for Carol - thoughts on the transplant | No Comments »