sydney the new kidney – her heart could stop – splish splash………

me, chloe and sydney the new kidney.

last night before i left the hospital, i stopped and said “i need a picture for my blog” and only after looking at it this morning did i really stop to think about how both of our worlds have changed since last friday.

i nearly lost my daughter post op.

sydney the new kidney didn’t wake up.

crawford, chloe’s partner, and kidney pool donor being rushed down post op at 11pm for a cat scan, as his heart rate was crazily high.

it’s been a journey.

but sydney has now woken up, and chloe’s egfr has gone up from pre op 15% to yesterday being 37% and her other critical biomarkers are all looking great, so whilst she is literally exhausted, and still in a lot of pain, considering she has gone through major surgery, and had another persons living organ inserted into her body, she is doing wonderfully well.

the whole process has been surreal, and this is roughly how it went, with a bit of backstory for context.

chloe’s kidney function has been deteriorating for years, and she has known transplant was the only option.

unfortunately she has had to wait until her egfr was below 20, which has taken a very long time.

during this time she has had a number of people, offer to become direct donors, only to pull out at various stages, for various reasons, all very emotionally taxing for her.

i was a good match until quite far along the donor process, but when the hospital discovered my kidneys have three arteries instead of two, i couldn’t donate.

so, whilst unable to be a direct donor, crawford could go into the ‘pool’ and see if that would work.

the pool is where a number of people who need kidneys, like chloe, with non direct donors, like crawford, go into a countrywide pool, and hopefully find a match.

chloe’s pool setup consisted of three pairs of people, who would donate and receive kidneys.

an amazing system, but fraught with risk, should any of the donors back out, or any of the six get ill, i.e. covid, etc.

so we have all been isolating trying to make sure we weren’t the ones to jeopardise the op going ahead.

on sunday, crawf and chloe checked into the hospital ready for the ops to take place monday.

the three donors, around the uk, go down to theatre at the same time, and the three surgeons make the first incision with a three way call, and “cut”, so nobody backs out.

the three donor kidneys then make their way to their new humans.

as crawford said goodbye to chloe, before he headed to theatre, it was a very emotional moment, as i’m sure you can imagine, and the next hours waiting to hear that the op had been successful were very long and tense.

finally we got the information we had been waiting for, he was ok, and the op had been a success, with his kidney heading for belfast, and we tracked its journey to cardiff airport and to ireland.

brilliant news.

now we had to wait for chloe’s new kidney to arrive, and for her operation to commence.

the wait was long, and tania and i did our best to keep our baby happy and positive, all the while suppressing and keeping our own tsunami of emotions hidden and in check.

finally the call came, “we’ll be taking you down in half an hour”.

stay calm jeffrey, don’t show any fear, stay strong for your girls.

we hugged and kissed her goodbye, and she was gone.

phew, this was tough.

we were told she would be down for approximately 6 hours, so decided to go home, as we only live 15 minutes from the hospital.

once home we ate some food, and i decided to try to get forty winks, and tania informed me she was going to tesco for “some bits”.

i didn’t say a word, but she looked at me and said “we all handle these things in our own way” i nodded, closed my eyes, silently agreeing with her.

twenty winks in, my phone pinged, i’d missed a call from the hospital, so i very nervously played the message back.

she was out of theatre, and in recovery, the operation had been a success.

but it had only taken about two hours, super fast, so when i called tania to give her the news, she understandably nearly freaked, and was in the middle of posting some ‘vinted’ parcels, dropping them on the floor as i regaled the news.

we arrived at the hospital just in time to see chloe arrive back to her room, fully awake, still full of anaesthetic, and behaving as though she was as high as a kite, absolutely hilarious, and when we told her how fast the op had been, she kept winking and saying “legend” and “overachiever” she was literally like another person.

crawford was back from theatre, and his mum and twin sister, vanessa and laura were there to greet the hero of the hour, without whom this whole kidney equation wouldn’t be happening, and the significance of his action will be so full of impact, and i for one will forever be grateful for his selflessness, thank you crawfy, you hero.

as the night drew in, crawf text chloe that his heart rate was high, and they needed to take him for a cat scan, which worried me, and at the same time one of the kidney surgeons came into the room, and calmly told chloe that her potassium levels were really high, and repeated “really high” for effect.

chloe asked him what that meant, and he informed us all that if they kept rising her heart could stop.

i was stunned.

another doctor arrived, and they asked me and tania to leave the room.

as we closed the door, we could see crawford being wheeled down for his scan, and he looked pale and frail.

tania and i looked at each other, not saying a word, none were needed.

the medical team eventually opened the door, and informed us, matter of factly, that they had administered medication, and hopefully the levels will come down, and they will be monitoring chloe very closely.

the next hours were very long, but when chloe’s next results showed up the levels were dropping, and the medical team seemed less worried.

crawfords results were good, and both families felt massive relief at the news.

the next few days, have seen improvements, with crawford being allowed home after only two days, amazing to think how fast his recovery has been.

and chloe has grown in strength, and after a day or so of sydney ’sleeping’, he has apparently ‘woken up’ and started working, producing significant health improvements, with chloe no longer getting cramps, and noticeably looking brighter eyed.

the journey has been long, and there is a long way to go before full recovery, but all the signs are positive, so we’ll stay strong, and hopefully sydney provides chloe with a life she deserves.

it’s been one heck of a week, but one i’m personally very grateful for, and is another experience to learn and grow from.

i hope yours has been a little less intense, and until next week,

thanks for reading,

blue skies,

jeff

p.s. highlight of the week, one of the male nurses singing “splish splash, chloe’s taking a bath” as she had a bed bath, comedy gold, i would pay to have seen her face.