Our first night with NO dialysis..

Our night wasn't super eventful. Parker did have a few fits of pain throughout his sleep, though. The scary part of it all was that his heart rate would spike up to the 190's and his blood pressure was spiking up to the 130's/90's. Normally, his blood pressures are 90's/50's. They've been giving him dillaudid every 3-4 hours, but it wasn't enough. When these fits would happen, the nurse would have to stop what she was doing, call the resident, and get approval for a "rescue" dose. When Dr. B- his kidney doctor- came in this morning and heard this, he was not happy. He said that they should have called the pain team in immediately, and that per his orders, the pain team was coming to consult this morning ASAP. Until the pain team comes, he has ordered that they begin a continuous dillaudid drip to ease the pain and keep him comfortable. 

The good news is that the super kidney was performing "too good". That's why they had to give Parker the single drip of potassium, magnesium, and calcium. Things have started to stabilize on their own, though, and they haven't had to give him any more. His kidney function looks great! Yesterday, I talked about BUN and creatinine, the labs used to determine kidney function. Generally, the lower they are, the better. Before surgery, Parker's BUN was 44 and creatinine 4.4. Immediately after surgery, his BUN was 34 and creatinine 1.5. This morning, however, his BUN was 12 and his creatinine 0.2!! Dr. Abt, the transplant surgeon, said you couldn't ask for a more perfect creatinine. We have plenty of urine, too, which is kind if weird. He has produced over a liter and a half of urine in 14 hours. His urine does have a tinge of blood in it, but according to the doctors that is normal. 

They have started giving him his new sets of medicines. All of the ones that he was on before surgery are no longer needed. Now, he is getting Cellcept and Prograf, his anti-rejection medicines. He is getting two antibiotics, Ancef and Bactrim as a profalactic. Basically, these are just preventative to make sure he doesn't get infection. He will stay on the Bactrim for a few months after transplant, but the Ancef is just for a few days due to surgery. The Nystatin is an oral rub to prevent thrush. It looks like a giant q-tip swab with medicine in it. He will also stay on this for about six months. Lastly, he is starting prednisone. This is a steroid that helps to protect the kidney. They will slowly taper him off of this medicine in the next few months, but for now, we are hoping it stimulates some growth. 

Overall, we could not be more pleased! I encourage everyone to consider sharing your spare! I know it is not something that everyone can do, but it's something to think about. It's amazing what Patty has done for Parker. My baby's body is functioning all by itself without a machine for the first time EVER! 

We have pee pee!