Walking tall

Hello friends! As most of you know already, Tessa and I completed a successful organ exchange last Friday. Tessa is recovering beautifully and is already up and walking, in addition to eating her first banana in 9 months and peeing more than 10 cc's at a time. She has been incredibly stoic and brave during the last several days and is improving by the hour. We feel so lucky that we have gotten this far and the future is finally looking a bit brighter for the Ulvestad family.

For those of you who weren't aware, I certainly don't blame you. As we became accustomed to our new lives with dialysis and all the rest, we got out of the habit of updating this blog. Things became normal again...at least in relative terms and we simply tried to go on about our lives the way that everybody else does who isn't going through something life-changing or traumatic. We've also been living in a surreal, sleep-deprived state for so long that our capacity for living has been stripped down to the bare essentials. We had spent the last few months undergoing thorough cross-matching and health testing to determine our compatibility and the green light went on just a couple weeks ago. It has been a blur since then. But now things are coming back into focus for us (somewhat) and we hope to keep everybody informed on a more regular basis.

I won't go deeply into the medical details right now other than to say that the doctors are still tinkering alot with balancing out all the meds, blood pressure issues, eating difficulties, etc...however the docs and the research we've done say that it's par for the course to have alot of ups-and-downs within the first 6 months and that we should get used to a bumpy ride.

Well the ride started out with a free fall. After the operation, the kidney took many hours before it began making urine. Typically, the transplanted kidney is already doing that even before it's hooked up to the recipient's ureter...so needless to say, the first six hours or so were super-stressful for our family as we waited for pee. My blood pressure has never been so high and I'm pretty sure that was do more to Tessa situation than my own surgery. Fortunately, the kidney kicked in around 6 or 7pm or so the night of the operation (surgery started around 8am that morning)...give or take a couple hours (that part is still a blur for me). Biggest relief of my life. Blood pressure dropped 20-30 points right then and there.

So he we are 5 days later and all the numbers are trending in the right direction. Tessa is walking, talking, laughing (which hurts), obsessed with administering pretend Tylenol by IV to her hospital doll, and well on her way to becoming either a very good doctor or nurse in her future...or an artist :)

Thanks to all for the love and support! I would call out names of people to thank but that would take another hour of typing.

More updates to come as the ride continues.

PS. The giraffe in the picture was a gift to Tessa from my co-workers who remembered that they are her favorite. She can't wait to get home and see it in person.