First
Week Post Transplant
Feb
6 – 12, 2005
(in hospital)
All I remember about Sunday, the day following the transplant, was that it seemed as though the nurse kept taking my vital signs and not letting me sleep, but I must have slept since the memories are always of her waking me up to take them. I was in the ICU until Monday morning, when they moved me to a private room. I vaguely remember having two I.V. poles stacked with medicines. I.V. tubes ran into my body, mostly through a line in my neck. A day or two later I was weaned to only one I.V. pole. In another few days these were all removed as I was switched to oral medications. They removed the foley catheter a little sooner than I thought I was ready to start trekking to the bathroom on my own. But I was fine.
All this week I was unable to sleep at night, so cat napped during the day with constant interruptions from doctors and nurses. Deep REM sleep eluded me and I was unable to dream. This ran me ragged.
To get through the long nights, I read one of the books a dear girlfriend had sent me, “A Tree Grows in Brooklyn ,” (which I finished the night before I left the hospital.) Towards the end of the week I wanted to start journaling, even a few notes of my experience, but found myself unable to write. My fingers simply could not hold a pen and scrawl legibly. They told me this was a side effect of one of the anti-rejection medications I was taking.
The few notes I did manage to get down, those which I am able to read, talk about the week being a “dark night of Soul.” My usually cheerful positive outlook eluded me, and I felt mired in a funk. Each time I was able to pull out of it, however, I could see again the perfect timing of things, the grace in the entire experience. But these moments didn’t come as often as I would have wanted and instead I acted in ways that I would not consider “myself.”
For example, when Dr. Cooper, the surgeon who performed the transplant came in to visit me, I had wanted to thank him for taking part in this wonderful gift. Instead, all I could do was to complain about the fact that my limbs wouldn’t stop shaking—another side effect of the medicines, and the awful pain of the chest tubes.
The chest tubes were a particular problem for me because I’d had open heart surgery so soon beforehand—only a year ago—and my lungs were more susceptible to tears. The tubes had to stay in to keep draining fluid until the tears healed, otherwise my lungs might collapse.
We had called my father as soon as we had been informed about the transplant. My Dad had taken the first flight out of Houston Saturday morning and arrived about the time I woke up in the ICU. I was surprised and glad how quickly he arrived. He stayed for several days. One night, about 4am , I was in such pain from the tubes that I called him and he came over from the hotel to sit with me. He stayed all day until late that night. Just sitting there. Being a comforting presence. Loving me. I felt so very grateful.