I started this post a couple of weeks after my transplant, which was June 5, 2022. It has now been a year and I’m finally publishing it. It’s been a whirlwind year, starting from the evening I received the call. But here is the gist of what happened afterwards and a bit since.
This post is more for me to remember the last few weeks. But if you’re reading, awesome. I’m still in shock and I feel like the reality of my new life is slowly setting in.
A quick recap…I had to start dialysis in November. I tried peritoneal dialysis for less than a month and that sucked so I needed to get a chest catheter to go to in clinic hemo dialysis. That was so much better. Cayden and I were finishing up testing again so she could be my donor as planned. I was forced to get the Covid vaccine as well as the booster in order to be transplanted. They finished up the testing by checking my antibodies again. We found out that I now was highly sensitized and was no longer a match with Cayden. Oof! Being highly sensitized means that it would be very difficult to find a match. After being angry and sad, I accepted my new life of being on dialysis with no end in sight.
I had a zoom appointment with one of the transplant nurses in May and I found out I was already almost 5 years on the waiting list. What?!? That was such good news. As a highly sensitized patient, I also have priority on the list after pediatric patients. I still wasn’t ever expecting to get the call. Ever!
The weekend of June 3, Eric, Tucker, and I headed to Livermore for Tuck’s state trap shooting event. Chloe stayed home to go to graduation parties. She just graduated from high school the previous Thursday. What?!? We also just listed our house for sale the day before we left. It was already a busy weekend.
Day one of Tuck’s shoot was completed and he did awesome. Eric went to dinner with our friend, Ryan who lives in the area. Tuck and I stayed back in our trailer to play games and hang out. We had just finished a game of War, (which I won) and I got a phone call from a number in Louisiana. Of course I didn’t answer because, that’s weird. And of course I googled the number because that what you do. It came back to a nurse which I thought was weird. But I didn’t think anything of it. Then I got a text. THE text.
I immediately had Tucker call Eric and tell him I got the call. As he was calling, I was calling the nurse back. She told me they found a match and began asking me a bunch of questions. I told her we were about an hour and a half away and she said that wasn’t a problem. They were waiting for the final match results which came in while I was talking to her. They would review and let me know.
In the meantime, Tuck and I were frantically packing up our trailer so we could hit the road. Eric was heading back and the first person I called was Chloe, then of course Elizabeth. And wouldn’t you know it, she didn’t answer because we never call each other. Hahaha! I texted her saying I didn’t butt dial her. Of course when she called me back within a minute, she said she didn’t answer because she thought I butt dialed her. Hahaha!
Then it hit me. Someone’s loved one just died. That was the reason I got the call. I prayed for them and their family. I couldn’t imagine what they were going through that evening.
When we got to UCDavis around 9pm, Eric had to just drop me off because he had the trailer and our pup, Ellie. Chloe met us there so I could get hugs. It was such an odd feeling walking into the hospital for a life altering surgery and I was by myself. Very surreal. When I got up to the transplant floor, I was greeted by the most amazing nurses. Seriously amazing!!!! They were so sweet and helpful. Which I really needed. I was still in shock about what was happening. One of the doctors came in and explained the next few steps before surgery. And he said the kidney was there in the hospital. I went and got a chest X-ray first. Then the nurses tried to draw blood. Lots of blood. It took a really long time to get anything. I felt bad, but being on dialysis, it’s difficult to draw blood. Really just trying to find a good vein was hard enough. Of course I had to take a Covid test. I had to do some sort of fitness test. The first one was a sit test. Where I had to sit and stand up from a chair and they counted how many times I did it in 30 seconds. Weird. Then I had to walk in the hallway from certain points and they counted how many times within 6 minutes. Apparently I passed. Haha!
I napped for a bit while waiting to go into surgery. Finally around 3:15am the doctor came and got me. Once we got to the hallway of the OR, we found out that there was a delay. Someone else wheeled me into the recovery area to wait. It was super quiet. I just watched the clock. They did check on me a couple of times. One of the anesthesiologist stopped by to ask questions. I didn’t know that UCD had already called Eric to tell him I was going in at 3:30. So later that morning he was starting to worry because he hadn’t heard anything and I should have been out of surgery already. Finally around 5:30, the other anesthesiologist came by to let me know they were ready. He gave me some meds through my IV and the next thing I remember was waking up in my room.
My new kidney was working. Oh man! What a miracle. I wasn’t in much pain because they put in a nerve block. Can I just say, I love nerve blocks!!!! I had one when they put in my fistula last month. They are amazing. Once I was awake enough, I called Eric. He wasn’t there with me because we had some showings of our house and we needed to keep our dog, Ellie Mae, out of the house. So Eric was dealing with all of that stuff while I was recovering. I was actually feeling pretty good. I met my wonderful roommate, Tiffani, who had gotten a kidney about 7 years ago from her husband. She was there just dealing with some other stuff. It was nice to have someone to talk to. My parents were in town from Idaho for Chloe’s graduation and Tucker’s promotion from eighth grade, so they were my first visitors. Eric was finally able to come later on that afternoon.
Most of my recovery in the hospital went well. My kidney was working really well right from the beginning. They even said that they were going to take my chest catheter out while I was there. That ended up being one of the worst experiences I’ve ever felt in the hospital. I won’t go into too much detail, but I definitely should have been put under or given more than a couple of lidocaine shots. It took way longer than expected and was much more painful than expected. The doctor was literally digging into my chest and pulling the catheter for an hour. I tried not to cuss, I tried not cry, but I definitely didn’t scream, which I definitely wanted to do. I felt really bad for the doctor because there was nothing else he could do. And to top it off, I really needed to go to the bathroom. I had been given lasix because the excess fluid wasn’t coming off and I was having chest pain from it. Oh man, the poor doctor. I was not his favorite patient that day. He had to go into the bathroom with me and wait until I emptied my bladder. Thankfully after having two kids and the millions of surgeries I’ve had, I didn’t care if he was there or not. I HAD to go.
All while I was in the hospital, we were getting offers on our house. Our friend and realtor, Kristen was amazing and helping us navigate through everything. We just love her. It had been a very hectic week with the showings, my surgery, Tucker’s promotion, and life, so we were very grateful Kristen was there to be our calm.
I finally busted out of the hospital and wouldn’t you know it, both Eric and Tucker got covid for the first time. That made my recovery and just being at home a bit more difficult. But we are Baade’s and can get through anything.
And back to present day. My kidney is doing amazing. My kidney function is around 69%. I’ve had some GI issues but we’ve been slowing getting that figured out. I was hoping to be able to do Ironman Texas last April, but had to stop training due to my GI issues. I’m planning on doing Ironman California in October in honor of my donor.
I haven’t decided if I’ll keep writing this blog. I definitely wanted to write this post since it was such big news. But we will see if I feel like posting anymore. Thanks for taking the time to read.
And a huge thank you to my donor. I think about you every day and I pray every day for your family. I do hope the family wants to meet some day. It would be amazing to be able to thank them in person.
Transplant to Ironman 