Hospital Stay

Our hospital stay at Good Samaritan was a great experience, but not without it's ups and downs. The second day is when the true healing begins. I was warned that this would be a difficult day because they make you get up, walk, and sit in a chair, and the pain is excruciating, even with a pain pump. I was pushing that thing every six minutes as long as they allowed me to.

James was finally brought down to the ninth floor (the kidney floor) by that afternoon. The difference between a transplant recipient and the donor is striking. His IV was the biggest I have ever seen. It had six different regulators all going at once. He had massive amounts of tubes plus the catheter and bag. It's amazing he was able to walk at all! I had just had the regular fluids plus a pain pump. James was able to eat regular food right away while I was finally given soft food by the third day. The biggest difference was that he got a single room and I got to have a roommate.

This roommate I had was an elderly lady. She had been there at least a few days before me. I never quite figured out what was wrong with her but she had a cough you would not believe! The first night after surgery she kept me up all night coughing and then she got out of bed and started wandering around, almost fell down. The next day, people would call me to find out how I was doing and she thought I was talking to her. She would yell at me through the curtain and think I was the nurse or that I should call her nurse. I finally started talking back trying to tell her where the call button was and how to turn on the TV.

The nurses there were fantastic. As I said, the second day was tough. I had a hard time going to the bathroom after the anesthesia, and my nurse had a hard time helping me. My roommate's nurse was Nathan and he had this knack of getting me up and down without hurting. I would wait to go until she called for him and then asked him to help me. After a while he started checking in on both of us. By the end of the day, I was just asking for him. My nurse finally came in to help him with me and said, "I need to learn your trick. She won't let anyone else touch her now!" That was very true. He was great.

The third day, I got off the pain pump, and things got easier. I was put on a super Ibuprofen and it finally took the pain away. Nathan was still the other ladys' nurse, but he helped both of us when he could. James also really liked his cute nurse, so we both had our favorites. This was Thursday and that night, my mom-in-law and I went into James' room and watched American Idol together. Everyone on the floor thought James and I were very cute. It's rare enough to have husband and wife, but even more rare for them to be just a few doors down from each other, young and cute that we are.

The doctors wanted me out Thursday night, but I talked them into discharging me the next day after they let me have real food and get out of bed by myself. Mom-in-law was staying in Guest lodging just one building away and that's where I went Friday afternoon. James followed by being discharged on Saturday.