Bunn’s Prairie

All,

Kaley and our donor are still inpatient at the U of M hospital. The transplant appears to have been a great success.

Our donor has been unhooked from his IV and has been eating normal foods and has started walking around. If all stays well tonight, he may go home on Sunday.

Kaley has started eating soft foods today. The new kidney seems to have made a difference on a number of fronts. First of all her blood pressure has been too low after taking her normal meds. The team is going to reevaluate her needs going forward tomorrow and Monday. Second, she has not been nauseous since the transplant. Nausea is a symptom of renal failure and this development was expected but not nearly to this degree. Let’s hope this continues. Finally, Kaley’s creatinine level (often the primary measure of kidney function) was 0.7 this morning, well in the normal range. She has been having trouble sleeping and as such we would like to keep visitors and phone calls to a minimum until she has really gotten a good night’s sleep. She would desperately like to speak with everyone and thank them personally, but that will come in time.

Thank you, everyone who has kept us in your thoughts and prayers during this time and the time leading up to the transplant. Please continue to think of us and Kaley’s continued healing.

Great news!

Kaley’s transplant happened today with very good results. In fact one of the doctor’s described their reaction as “ecstatic” to how the procedure went. Both Kaley and the donor are recovering very nicely. The organ began working as soon as it was hooked up.

Yea! Happy Day!

Kaley is still inpatient at the University of Minnesota — Fairview dealing with the same nausea issues that so often causes us problems. Tomorrow she and our donor will undergo another round of pre-op tests including another “final” cross match in tissues between one another, an EGK, and other tests.

On Thursday morning, Dr. David Sutherland M.D., the head of the transplant team at U of M Fairview will perform the kidney harvest from our donor and the implantation of the kidney into Kaley. Given the complexity of Kaley’s case it was decided that Dr. Sutherland was the best choice of surgeons to perform our procedures. We have had many occasions to work with Dr. Sutherland and we have the great confidence in his abilities.

Please keep our donor and Kaley in your prayers over the next few days during this procedure.

Thank you.

Hello all,

Kaley is back in the hospital as of Friday morning. Same old story. If she is feeling well enough in time, the we are hoping she can spend a couple of days at home before she gets admitted on Wendsday the 22nd for the transplant.

Sorry about not posting in a while, I haven’t had any real update to give. Kaley has been out of the hospital for 16 days now and has shown a huge improvement in her strength and stamina. We’ve enjoyed living a relatively normal life for these past two weeks and are looking forward to hopefully another week of normalcy before the kidney transplant on the 23^rd. We go the official word from the doc’s about the final tissue cross-match tests and everything came back good (as we were praying for). Kaley will be admitted some time on during the week of the 23^rd but we’re not sure exactly when yet. We were told to be flexible and keep our calendars open.

-Andy