Part Thirty Nine: Badges of Honor

My dad had his first post-transplant appointment today down at SLU and he and my mom stopped by my apartment afterward to have lunch.

Dad seemed confident he could make it up my steep stairs, but he was pretty wiped out after the climb. He settled into my couch while my mom and I made the short walk down the street to the bank and nearby restaurants.

The trip to the bank took longer than expected (I was depositing my summer tip money from Six Flags and the teller had to count out $32 worth of coins BY HAND). By the time we returned with the food, my dad was asleep on the couch.

Turns out the appointment went pretty good. The surgeon said the reason dad is so out of breath is because he is anemic. He offered the options of a blood transfusion or some sort of other (iron?) injections. I don't even know why the doctor made the suggestion of a blood transfusion. As one of Jehovah's Witnesses, my father will not accept blood transfusions. The surgeon knew that and had just gotten done telling my dad how little blood he had lost during the surgery and how it wasn't even necessary to think about giving him blood. And then he turns around and offers him a transfusion for his anemia. Weird.

Needless to say, Dad is going without the transfusion... and the doctor expects him to feel quite a bit better within the next week or so. I thought he'd already shown quite a bit of improvement since yesterday afternoon. He even felt well enough to pose for some pictures with me.

Here we are showing off our new scars. (You can see where I get my physique from... although I think we're both still a little bloated and swollen from our respective surgeries.)

Part Thirty Eight: Dishwashers and River Roads

I spent a good part of yesterday waiting for my little brother to show up at my house so that I could ride with him over to see my dad across the river. Alex lives about an hour and a half southwest of St. Louis and is not known for his punctuality. It can be difficult when you have a long drive and a couple of hyper kids to wrangle, so I understood... but he arrived about two hours later than I was expecting him to.

While I was waiting, I busied myself around the house.

There was a bit of a miscommunication between me and C yesterday as she left for work. As she hurried through the house she said something like, "The stuff in the diswasher is clean... just in case..."

Now, pre-kidney donation that would translate to: "I loaded and ran the dishwasher and the stuff in it has been sitting there clean for a few days. Do you think you could take a few minutes of your time to empty it?"

Apparently, post-kidney donation that meant: "The stuff in the dishwasher is clean... so if you need silverware or a plate or something, you can get it out of there. I haven't had time to empty it."

Well, of course I was still operating on the pre-kidney donation verbal cues... and thought she was trying to give me a hint. I took it to mean that if I got bored today, I might want to empty the dishwasher, clean the kitchen, rearrange furniture, straighten the living room, and make the bed. So that's exactly what I did.

C was a little mad at me when she got home for doing so much around the house... but it really wasn't so much. I assured her that I pushed the rocking chair across the house (rather than picking it up) and that the bed was already half-made so I mostly just pulled back the covers and straightened them a little.

I promised I would take it easy today... although secretly I have plans to walk down to the Bosnian grocery store and pick up supplies for pie making. Muahahahahahaha....

When my little brother finally arrived yesterday, we went on a drive over to Alton, IL so that he could show his girlfriend and her kids where we grew up. The kids were bored by the tour and Alex and I were somewhat depressed by our meager beginnings. Everything seems so much smaller when you go back to visit it later in life. After the quick tour of schools and other landmarks, we wound up at the home my dad will be staying at for the next few weeks.

It was shocking to see my dad... he seemed so small and so sick and tired. This is probably the worst I've ever seen him, and he's been in bad shape before.

I think the surgery really took a lot out of him. The doctors were concerned that perhaps there had been some trouble with his heart during surgery... and my dad has been complaining of difficulty breathing. We were showing off our incisions and my dad's abdomen is a mess. He has a footlong gash that is stapled together and oozing out one side... and from his belly all the way down to his groin, he is bruised bright purple and red. (My mom noted, "And that's NOT ALL that's bruised... it keeps going." Wink, Wink...)

I guess I was a little let down by my dad's appearance. It's kind of funny because in all of the message boards and donor experiences and stuff I'd read, it seemed like people were saying that the donor is the one who usually has the rougher end of the bargain. And that it doesn't seem fair that the donor is usually laid up so long but the recipient shows a remarkable improvement in health right away and seems so much better so much quicker.

But my dad had really run himself ragged in the weeks before the surgery. He was up on his roof, leading a group of workers in shingling his house and spent a lot of time finishing carpentry work on his porch. All of this in addition to working as a laborer for a construction company until just a few weeks ago. So he was pretty worn out going into surgery and I'm sure it's going to take quite a while for him to get back to his old self.

He was quick to assure me that he really is feeling better as far as his kidney disease goes. Obviously, he's not on dialysis anymore which is such a relief. And my dad said that he can already tell a difference in that his joints and muscles aren't achy anymore and he doesn't get weird electric shocks through his body like he used to before the transplant. Also, there is an obvious improvement in his urination... the kidney is doing everything it is supposed to do!

Now we just have to worry about him getting healthy everywhere else so that the kidney will last him a long time.

After a quick visit at the house, we hopped into a couple of cars and drove down the Great River Road toward Grafton, Illinois. It was just before sunset and the light was shining down onto the mighty Mississippi. Most of the trees here have now turned colors and beautiful patches of red and yellow and orange flashed by us as we cruised along the river and bluffs. My mom was driving and my dad was in the front seat drifting off. I sat in the back and watched him sleep.

I looked around me at the trees and the water and the sun coming down... and my parents in the front seat. I closed my eyes and thanked God for giving me all of this. And for the first time in a long time, I felt home again.