At 10 p.m. October 11, 2023 I got the call from the UMC night nurse. I was already hooked up to my dialysis machine.
“Get unhooked, drain, and come in,” she said. “We have a kidney.” Then she gave me the directions on how to get to the UMC transplant entrance.
I was shaking with excitement as I disconnected. My little black dog, Foxy, who was asleep and snoring on the bed, groaned when the light hit her eyes. I first called my brother Calvin and the call went to voice mail. I next called my other brother Jeff. “I got the call.”
This brother knows me too well. “Don’t drive,” he said. “I’m getting you a driver.” While I was rushing around, getting the dog’s food and diapers together, Jeff called me back. “I got ahold of Josh. He’s taking you to the hospital.”
The plan had always been that Calvin would make sure I got to the hospital and that Jeff would take care of my dog. Jeff knew I would heal less and worry more if my dog wasn’t taken care of. His assistant’s mother said she would care for Foxy until I got out of the hospital.
Already the plan was out of whack. Jeff was in California and Calvin was in Arizona on business. I didn’t care. I was getting a kidney.
When we got to the UMC hospital, Foxy was on my lap and confused, and our first challenge was to find the Trauma entrance. UMC is the trauma hospital for Las Vegas, NV and the surrounding area. They do all of the transplants in the area. Early this year, my nurses at my Fresenius dialysis center had been excited because one of their hemodialysis patients had been picked for a kidney earlier this year.
It is a big deal to get a kidney. My brother was looking up the stats and there are 90,000 people across the US who are on the list waiting for kidneys. This does not count how many kidney patients never get on the list. I knew a dialysis patient who lived in my apartment building who needed a kidney and liver transplant. She didn’t think it was going to happen. I’m a much hopeful sort. I just knew that I would get a kidney in the Fall. I’ve been saying this for two years now.
My nephew had one of those range rovers that had been modified so he could go into the backwoods for Elk hunting. To get into his ranger, I had to step on his knee and pull myself in. I barely made it at full dialysis strength. So our first stop to an open door in the hospital was the wrong entrance. Yep, I got out. Yep I needed help.
The doctors and guard outside were taking a break and they tried to explain where the Trauma entrance was? Instead of asking if I could go in anyway because I knew they were going to deny me, I trudged back to the rover and Josh gave me a knee again.
Then trying to follow their instructions, we ended up at the Valley Hospital. I called the night nurse then and she gave us more instructions. We ended up at the parking lot of the UMC Transplant office. Let me tell you it felt surreal. About four nurses were happy to point us back to the entrance. There were two side by side. One led to the parking lot and the other led to the ER door with ambulances.
One of the reasons it was so hard to find the entrance is that the UMC had started a huge Revitalize project in April 2023. There was construction walls, tape, and fences everywhere. Signs pointed one way and then the other. The entrances were hard to see. Even the roads were torn up in places. And it was dark.
We had to look for a break in the fence to get inside and then finally we saw the signs saying Trauma that led away from ER entrance. An admin with a logbook and a guard sat at a desk barring our way. “Name?” she barked.
I told her my name and she said I wasn’t on the list. “But,” I said. “I was called in for a kidney by the night nurse.”
“Wait.” She then called the night nurse. Then she smiled, made me sign the book, gave Josh a visitor’s pass. Then she pointed us down a long passageway. “The elevators are on the left and you need to go to the fourth floor.”
By this time, I’m was a connoiseur of hospitals. When I was first diagnosed with Wegener’s Granulomatosis, and almost died, I stayed four weeks in a German hospital. It was quiet, not unhappy, but very German. I even spoke rudimentary medical German by the time I was out.
I’ve spent two hospital visits at the VA. One time was for diverticulitis. That was very painful and I found out that I was not only allergic to penicillian but also any of the derivatives. The second time I was only there overnight. I wasn’t prepared to stay so when I started to walk the next day in a gown with my butt hanging out, they decided to let me go with an antibiotic.
I had a very painful experience at the Boulder City hospital and another painful experience with the St Rose clinic on Boulder highway. One had to do with a concussion after a car accident and the other was uncontrollable diarrhea. The second one a nurse discharged me without discharging me. Let’s say I was still high on the medication she gave me. I got home safely though.
So I had no idea how this hospital stay would go. Even though the VA hospital and the German hospital had been pleasant, they were not something I would write about. In the German hospital we had the dying patients on the same floor with the not-dying patients. There was a lot of hope and despair there.
I was fairly blase about hospitals by this time. I could take it or leave it. As you can tell I wasn’t ready for the adventure that was waiting for me.
The posts on my Kidney Transplant Journey will be open, but I would really appreciate it if you would support me on this platform or on my Cyn’s Shadowland platform for $5 dollars a month or $40 dollars a year.
Your support keeps me in dog food and those little extras like bleach wipes and gloves so I can keep my lowered immune system safe from infection.
Thank you for coming on this journey with me.