Wow! (part 1)

2. March 2008 by Carol.

This past week I went to Loyola for the Monday morning clinic they have for all their post-kidney transplant patients.  It was a regular weekly thing until the first of February, then became bi-weekly and now I’ve been given the reprieve for a month.  I’m glad for having this extra time in between the visits.  It is quite an experience. 

It starts with a blood draw and whatever other lab tests needed for that visit.  Then it transitions upstairs to the surgery follow up area.  Many - perhaps even most - of us in that waiting area are there for the clinic although there are others there who are post surgical for other reasons.  But it’s a little bitty waiting area for what is becoming a bigger and bigger crowd.  This week there were many of us who had to stand for awhile.  Then the waiting begins for your turn to go in and get your vitals done with the nurse, review all your drugs with the pharmacist and her intern.  Then you visit with a variety of medical students (all of which I’m old enough to be their mother - an older mother at that) and anywhere from one to three doctors and residents.  Then at the end there’s a brief meeting with your assigned post-transplant nurse coordinator.  All of this becomes nearly a whole day’s commitment when you factor in the driving to and fro.

But this last week I looked around the waiting room at my fellow waiting patients (I had a two hour wait so had plenty of time to look around) and saw so many REALLY sick people and it caused me to startle and inwardly say “wow - do I really belong here?  These people are really sick - am I really that sick?”  I think I’ve always tended to be in denial about the seriousness of my kidney failure with an occasional reality check that would slay me emotionally for a few days.  But as I went through the surgery and the recuperation time and the couple of setbacks, I still was pretty much in denial about it all.  I was busy dealing with all the changes and just getting myself back to a more normal life.   But I knew the time would come when reality would begin to hit and I think it was this week at the clinic.

And each day I look at the 10″ scar down the front of me and that’s starting to set in some reality.  That scar is not going away and underneath it not very far down is Jaime’s kidney.  It’s starting to become a reality…

But I think there’s much more reality to come and that’s why I titled this Part 1.  I see the Lord’s hand in this as he slowly allows me to see the reality and I’m grateful for the gradual process rather than a “slap me in the face” all at once reality.  I think this is the time that I will really start to begin the sort of “soul searching” that comes with the fact that I am no longer planning my funeral but instead I’m thinking about the years to come.  Wow!

Thanks for reading.

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