Now that everyone is home and doing well, I am ready to share our in-house experience. After 3 days of extensive testing, 12 weeks of TB treatment, and postponed surgery dates we finally made it to surgery. Our transplant was at Memorial Hermann Transplant Center in Houston. This facility is awesome and the people are great!
Many transplant centers will give you the fun stuff to drink, tell you what to do at home and have you check into the hospital at 5am. Hermann, however; admits you the day before and helps you to get through the day before surgery. We checked in at 11am the day before surgery and everything started. We walked in, my husband, myself, my recipient and his large family. We went quickly to the transplant center for our first round of labs. The excitement was palpable. The entire transplant center was just buzzing, everyone smiling, lots of hugs and just so much anticipation.
After the center, we were off to admissions, where we were surprised to be parted. We
misunderstood, my fault, and thought we were going to the transplant floor together. While I waited in admissions for orders, My recipient was whisked off to ICU, his new home until at least the day after surgery.
We both quickly tired. We had more labs drawn, two IV's started a piece, and were walked through the expected procedures for the following day. Michael was allowed to eat whatever he chose, while I was surprised to be told liquid diet for dinner and nothing by mouth after midnight. The picture above was taken late Monday night when we finally had time to say one last prayer before surgery, just before visiting hours were over.
I returned to my room just in time to find my cousin and a bottle of mag citrate waiting. All the real fun comes tomorrow including: how long DOES mag citrate take to work, what does the police department in surgery look like, and he gave birth to twins!???
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