Transplant!!!

Not sure how you are supposed to sleep before a day like this. As Dan snores away next to me, annoyed I won’t lay down, I type. The therapy I need to maybe put sleep to my brain that won’t turn off. Today has been quite the whirl wind of pre op x-rays, and then dialysis, then getting admitted to the hospital. We were upgraded to the dreaded orange caregiver/inpatient necklaces which both I and Dan despise. So since we were running around like crazy, with doctors and nurses coming in and out, signing so many papers I felt like I was signing her away, I didn’t have much time to have it sink in or worry. This last weekend though was hard. Breaking down multiple times and just stunk in a slump. It may have been that I had so much to do, no time to do it, and the last time at home before it all began. So on Sunday morning at church when they prayed for us I broke down, but at the same time had peace, always how it goes, the teeter totter.

Fear wouldn’t be what I am feeling right now, or excitement for that matter, but more anxiety. See the thing is, is Faith will be here at Children’s Hospital and I will be at UW hospital. Although they are only about 2 miles apart, they may as well be across the state. So to break down my anxiety for myself…first it is having to say goodbye to her in the morning, second is the NEEDLES which is a BIG second, third is the complexity of what they are going to have to deal with, with my vascular system in and around my kidney which is “quite in depth and work” as the surgeon told me, so with that the added time he will have to operating on me, Third is waking up from anesthesia. See my mom had surgery a few years ago for cancer and when she woke up she was so sick and throwing up, which is even more painful when you have a new cut in your abdomen. Fourth is the pain so many people have gladly shared with me is my intestines waking up, fun. Fifth and most of all is being away from Faith during all of this, and not being part of it, or there. I will be in the hospital till probably Saturday so the thought of being so far from her, not comforting her or knowing what is happening at every second is hard for me.

Of course I will have to start my morning in tears saying goodbye till then but then I get to listen to the nice “what mays” the nurses and doctors have to tell you. It is all just so surreal still though that she is going to get a transplant tomorrow, from me, and she is going to pee!! Sounds kind of silly but having a baby that hasn’t ever peed but a few times right after birth is going to be amazing. On top of that though which brings me to tears each time is she won’t be stuck to a machine every day. She will start to grow faster, eat better, and be a real kid which was never supposed to happen.

So I leave with this. A smile. My daughter is amazing and strong and I in less than 10 hours will be started into a surgery to give her life again. She is such a blessing to me and so many around us. With her sweet smile, crinkle noses, “so cute” poses, dancing to every symbolance of music or a beat, her adorable voice, which we never thought we would hear, her tongue need I say more, and just her strength and joy through all she has been through. If I end up half as strong as her I would have accomplished so much. So here is to peace as I wheel away, patience while I have to stay away and joy to thought of how my sweet “booger” will flourish and change from what I am about to do. Thank God for little girls.