Nearly Three Months Down The Road...

Hey all. I thought I'd take a little time to update everyone on Terri and Kelly's latest goings-on. I know, I know, it's been a while!

Terri is doing great. After a stretch of frequent ups and downs, she is steadily improving. She is still tired at times, but the doctors are encouraged this will fade. Her creatinine level is good (see previous post). She is now going to the transplant center only one time a week. This is a well-received cut back from going 2-3 times every week. We're told in a week or so she'll stop making trips to the transplant clinic and will go to the nephrologist clinic once every two weeks.

Kelly went back to work in mid July. You can imagine the adjustment from not working to immediately working full time. Needless to say, she was really tired after those first few days back but has since acclimated to her normal work schedule. She occasionally has some tightness around her scar, and other than numbness in the immediate area of her incision, does not have any problems or discomfort.

In fact, she was well enough to go skydiving with my brother and me just a couple weeks ago. What an experience! We also just returned from a little trip to celebrate our 1 year anniversary- what a year it's been....

Lastly, for those that didn't make the benefit show we played in Atchison back in July, we all had a great time and raised just over $800 for the benefit of Terri and Kelly. Again, we'd like to thank Mojo Cove for being so generous and to everyone else for their support and donations. We are so fortunate to be surrounded by such great people.

Terri and her husband, Tom, wanted to attend, but he surprised her with tickets to see Paul McCartney at the Sprint Center that same night. They had a great time, said Sir Paul was awesome, and wanted to thank everyone for their support. I don't blame them- I would much rather have seen Paul than our band play too. I thought it was such a nice gesture on Tom's part after all he and Terri have been through.

Take care out there- I'll post updates as they come along.

July 24th Benefit Gig

Hello, everyone. I wanted to let you know about a benefit show that we'll be playing to raise money for the NTAF, the transplant fund which helps to subsidize the costs associated with Terri and Kelly's surgeries.

As some of you already know, our group, the Garin Nolan Trio, will be playing at Mojo Cove located at Bellevue Country Club (1713 Country Club Rd) in Atchison, KS on Saturday, July 24th. We'll start playing around 8pm.

The restaurant has generously offered to donate a portion of sales that night to the cause so please come out for dinner and stay for the entertainment. Thanks for your support, and we hope to see you there!

Ups And Downs

Hey everybody, remember me? It's been a while. Sorry for the lapse, we've been busy!

As of late, there have been a few setbacks worth mentioning. Thankfully, the doctors don't think the issues are extremely problematic at this point. The doctors have and will continue to monitor Terri on an ongoing basis to watch how her body is accepting the "new addition". They discovered a blockage in Terri's ureter and had to perform a relatively quick surgery to put in a stent. The ureter (medical term) is a tube (not a medical term) attached from the kidney that carries urine to the bladder. I think I heard the time frame for the surgery would be around 20 minutes, but doesn't a cavity sometimes take longer than that to fix? Now, I'm no medical person and I don't watch Grey's Anatomy, but that seems pretty speedy. Perhaps I misheard the time. Regardless, the surgery went well with no problems.

This past Friday, we had a scare as Terri's creatinine levels were exceeding the expected levels. A normal functioning body maintains a pretty consistent creatinine level. As it's a chemical byproduct from muscles which gets filtered out of the blood by the kidneys, it's one of the most important components regularly measured both pre and post-op. They asked Kelly to come in and get lab work done immediately in an attempt to determine the cause of this fluctuation. They needed to determine if it was an infection of some sort or her body rejecting the new kidney.

To make a long story shorter, they now believe that her body was trying to reject it. I was told that this can initially happen even when the matches are good and despite Terri taking anti-rejection medication daily for the rest of her life. I suppose daily pill requirements are the price to pay for a procedure of this nature. They believe that Terri has turned the corner on this latest episode, and her creatinine levels have since moderated. Please keep her in your thoughts.

Kelly continues to get better and better. After a few sleepless nights which may have been due to her medication, she FINALLY slept last night! Even in my sleep, I was feeling bad for her having to watch (if that's what you call it) the dreadful programming of late, late, late night TV. In addition, she is becoming much more mobile and is getting around much better.

Sorry for the long post- a lot has happened as you can see. If interested, keep reading as I have some news on a benefit gig we'll be playing in July! Take care...

Pictures

Finally, here are some pictures of the surgery stay. Sorry they don't exactly look great from a formatting standpoint. You get the point though.

What's New

Hey guys. Been a little while since I sent out an update so in this bit of spare time, how about I do just that? Besides, a total of one person has been clamoring (such a weird word and one that I don't use often, but more importantly, it makes me think of tasty seafood) for updates.

So we just got back from Wichita today. We had Kel's one week follow-up appointment. Everything went well, and she is progressing as expected. I suppose it's as good of time as any to comment about something I have been meaning to mention- the incision. Gross, right? Surprisingly, it's not. The surgeon said it would be about six inches long but prided himself on making it a mere five and a half inches. He even measured it. There's a joke in there somewhere, but I'm not going near it. The incision is much closer to the front of her stomach than on the side as we originally thought it would be. It's a very clean, thin cut and not what I was expecting at all. Growing up watching Rambo and Terminator will sure sway a kid's mind away from reality.

We happened to run into the Thompsons during our follow-up today as they had the same thing scheduled. Much like Kelly, Terri is doing well but also gets tired very quickly. The docs say it will be about two to three weeks out of surgery before they recover from the weakness/excessive fatigue. Both her and her amazing husband, Tom, were in good spirits. They wanted to give Terri a couple of IVs while she was there to replenish her fluids. They gave her a "fast" one which took several minutes to run its course, and then they gave her a "slow" one. By slow I mean FIVE HOURS slow! Literally.....five.....hours. Apparently, you can't just chug a glass of water in front of the doctor then say "Peace out". It's just not that simple. We can get to the moon, but we can't administer quick inject IVs.

Anyhoo, much credit to the Via Christi team for making the entire stay as pleasant as possible for us all during the surgery stay. Our handful of nurses were very friendly and helpful. They were even patient with Kel when she was dealing with the drowsiness of her meds. Kelly asked one a question then fell asleep mid explanation! Who knew that hilarity ensues in a post-operation setting? It was priceless in a needed-a-video-recorder-on-that-one kind of way.

Wow, I sure was chatty tonight. Better stop before this post starts to resemble a thesis, a really poorly written thesis. Talk to you all later.

Home, Hotel....Same Thing

In a previous post, I had said Terri was home. Hopefully, no friends and family of Terri read this here blog because they may have had to field some questions and comments regarding that. There's nothing worse than a premature "Hooray!". Well, there are probably two or seven hundred things worse than that, but it's still no fun, agreed? Back to the point. At the time of that post, Terri WAS out of the hospital. I did get that part right. However, as a precautionary measure, she had to stay in Wichita for some testing so they had to spend a little time at the hotel across the street. Still good news though. In fact, it's still good news even considering the hotel she stayed at was umm...less than inviting. And that's an understatment. I know because we had a room there too.

I am proud to re-officially say that Terri is now home. This time, I mean it. Welcome home, Terri!

Terri Is Headed Home

I just got word that Terri is out of the hospital now. The fact that she is out ahead of schedule is a testament to her strong will. Most of us simply aren't able to be empathetic to being tethered to numerous IVs in a room not your own, in a town not your own. Now that all of this is being her, she can get on with regular living.

Welcome home, Terri!

Dinner Is Served, Madam

Made dinner tonight. Yep, that's right. And I wanted it to be just right. I went to the trusty playbook and made the ol' college bachelor's special. We had fish and pasta (read: fish sticks and macaroni & cheese). I can't believe Kel was nervous about what we were having.

.....Well, dinner's over, and we still have pulses so it didn't kill us.

We're Home

Good morning, guys. Sorry for the slight lapse in posts from yesterday morning to now. It's because Kelly was discharged from Via Christi Hospital yesterday around noon! We had to stop in Emporia to fill her prescriptions because she was starting to get uncomfortable. Aside from me missing a turn, the ride home was otherwise pretty uneventful. We're really happy to be back.

Kelly is still asleep now. I hope she sleeps until tonight. Why, you ask? Because she was interrupted from sleep all the time, sometimes hourly, while in the hospital. Whether it was from the staff checking her vitals, bringing medication and meals, or guests in the room TRYING to be quiet (usually myself), she would not get good sleep. Even during all hours of the night, the staff have to come in for various reasons. I felt so bad for her every time her sleepy eyes opened up yet again. Sleep tight, babe.

Tom let me know that Terri may be getting out of the hospital today. We're all hoping they get this bit of fortunate news. Let's all keep them in our thoughts.

Adios, Fold-Out Cot

Morning, everyone. While Kelly is back to sleep, I'm too elated for that now. We just got word from the surgeon that she will be discharged today- probably around noon in fact. This obviously means that they are confident that she's healed well enough to get out. This also means that my short but sordid past with my nemesis, the mini fold-out cot, is coming to an end. I can't say I'll miss it.

I would have loved to post pictures with this blog, but I still haven't found out how to do it or if this site allows it. I'm not the most tech-savvy person out there, but if I do find out, I'll post some before and after pictures.

More later...

Tomorrow

Before we head to bed & couch, I wanted to answer a question I've been getting quite a bit. If all goes as planned, Kelly will be discharged tomorrow. We'll try to make the trip back to KC, but if she's not feeling well on the drive we may only make it to Emporia. However, if the surgeon decides she better stay, then so be it. We have nowhere to be, and I haven't even come close to eating everything at the cafeteria.

They are still working to get some of Terri's stats where they want them so she may be here until Tuesday. With a little positive thinking it may even be earlier.

We just got done watching yet another chick flick, but (unfortunately for me) we haven't exhausted our supply of them. The decisions I've recently been faced with are: Will we watch Failure To Launch, Mannequin, or What Happens In Vegas next?

Good Morning, Terri

If I haven't mentioned, Terri's room is two doors down from us. On my way back to our room, I peaked into Terri's room to see if she was up. Boy, she was up. She was really chipper considering we all woke up to a very "verbal" patient across the hallway late last night. Aside from the lack of sleep, she was doing well. Did I mention she looks great too? I'm not kidding when I say these women are resilient! Aside from the laying-up-in-a-hospital thing, you'd probably never guess they went through such an operation.

Clarifications and notes:

The previous post about sleeping a little better last night apparently pertained just to ME. Kel told me she didn't have a very restful night. However, she is now sleeping comfortably. Also, today is Kelly's mom's birthday. We want to thank Sandi for unselfishly spending it in the hospital with us! I wonder if the staff here does a group sing along of Happy Birthday like restaurants do.

Lay Off Me, I'm Starving!

Good morning. Last night was better than the night before in terms of sleeping. This morning they took off Kelly's bandages permanently, and she will be able to take her first real shower today. You can image how welcome this news was to her.

Also, and probably most important to Kel at the time, was her getting her first solid food yesterday evening. That's all she wanted, and she finally got it. I'm hoping to deliver on her request for some pizza today.

Time to find some coffee while she sleeps.