Part 3
We arrived at 3:20am at the emergency room..We asked the guard where was the emergency room, and he said "this is the emergency room, I said "good". He started to give us a clipboard to fill out, but I told him, "my husband was just called for a liver transplant". He said "really" man, are you all nervous, and we said "no not at all". He asked us how long had we been waiting and we siad "Oh, 5 days". He said "wow"...So, he sent us back to the room to be processed. First they, took all of our information, and then took Johnnie back for a chest x-ray. We then went up to the room they had for us..Johnnie, had lots of blood taken, had to take a special bath and had his vitals taken. Around 5:00am the anthesiologist came in and spoke to us, then the transplant surgeon came in and spoke to us. They scheduled Johnnie's surgery for 7:30am..Anyway, the liver didn't arrive until later. They took Johnnie down to the operating room at 9:10am, I rode the elevator down with him..I was so nervous and realized what was about to happen..I kissed him and said my fairwell. "I love you" I said to him "I love you too" he said to me.."I will see you later". Ok...10:20am the nurse from the operating room called me and said "we just got started....1:05pm the nurse from the operating room called and said "we've got the old liver out, and the portal vein open". I asked her what did the old liver look like, and she said "Its pretty big and pretty yukky" "I think he will feel a whole lot better once we get the new one in" I said I think so too. She said "His old liver was enlarged and was difficult to get out". Anyway, she said "I'll call you again later and let you know whats going on. So, I said ok...
Well, all I won't bore you with all of the details from that glorious day, but I will say, if you go to the HOSPITAL PHOTOS page, you can get a pretty good idea of his conditions.
Oct. 8 - 13, 2004
Johnnie, doing really well..The new liver is working perfectly and making bile..Johnnie has a good appetite and is eating well..Well, on Oct. 11 we were all prepared to go home, but we couldn't..Johnnie's sugar level was 520...The immunosuppressant drugs are mostly to blame. They have to get his blood sugar under control before they let us go home. Oct. 13, we are on our way home..A bag full of medicine, with 3 pages of instructions...We were both nervous, not knowing what we were going to do..If we would mess up with the medicines or what..But, I knew that I wouldn't..Because, I was so careful.. After all, my baby had been through, I was not going to mess it up with giving his medicines wrong. But, we survived. We got home and sorted everything out. I got a system going, and put his medicine in an order, where we both could learn them and get used to them..I have instructions posted all over our wall, to make sure of no mistake...
Nov. 27, 2004
Hello All, It has been a while since we last made a entry into Johnnie's Journal, however I will give you a brief overview of what's been going on. We visited the doctor twice a week sometimes three times a week. They took blood so they could keep a close eye on the liver's progress as well as his prograf levels and white blood cell count. We were first given the news that the liver was going through mild rejection, then it was ok, because his liver function test levels were going down. Then we were told that Johnnie had a mild infection, but guess what, it wasn't really mild. The surgeon had to re-open a portion of his wound which was about the length of your index finger. They sent us home with lots of dressings, gauze, saline, tape, etc. I was given the tast of packing Johnnie's wound two to three times daily. Wow... Then we were told that the portal vein was narrowing, so they kept his bilary tube in to shoot dye in it, to see how the blood was flowing through the liver. They finally decided to remove the biliary tube because of the risk of infection. However, the portal veins narrowing has not gotten any better but it hasn't gotten any worse. The doctor put Johnnie on baby asprin so that it would thin his blood some to aid in blood circulating through his portal vein. At this time, Johnnie is doing really well. His wound infection is getting better and is healing.
