PKD Meets the Calm Before the Storm

Michael has had a couple of uneventful days and has taken advantage of them by catching up on business work. Even though he will not be seen by anyone at the hospital until Friday, he was not allowed to fly home for Thanksgiving. A real bummer, right? He still has the port in his chest so that keeps him restricted to the Chicago area. On Wednesday, his parents Harry and Anne, will be driving down from Canada where they live. They will be sharing an "American Thanksgiving" with Michael (only after I met Michael, did I learn that Canadian's have their Thanksgiving in October, how cool is that?) and then they will remain in Chicago for the rest of Michael's stay. Thank God for parents! I will be with Michael during his surgery and a week post-opt. Both Michael and I are self-employed, which produces a very simple equation (no work = no pay)².  This won't be our first Thanksgiving apart, actually it will be our second. Our first Thanksgiving together was celebrated thousands of miles apart. Michael had volunteered to go on a mission trip to Africa with his friend Tim (Matt's father).  Tim and his wife Karen along with their children started a mission in Uganda to help the poor. They founded 3 schools for orphans and needy children. Michael has always had a heart for children, he is AMAZING with kids and is "Uncle Mike" to so many! I feel as if he is still on a mission this year.  Instead of a mission to help needy children, he is on a mission to be part of medical history as he willingly gives his body to a research study which will hopefully pave the way for so many others in need of life saving organ transplants.

(National Kidney Foundation)

1. 104,748 U.S. patients are currently waiting for an organ transplant; more than 4,000 new patients are added to the waiting list each month.
2. Every day, 18 people die while waiting for a transplant of a vital organ, such as a heart, liver, kidney, pancreas, lung or bone marrow.
3. Because of the lack of available donors in this country, 4,573 kidney patients, 1,506 liver patients, 371 heart patients and 234 lung patients died in 2008 while waiting for life-saving organ transplants.
4. About 94.4 percent of the kidneys transplanted from cadavers (persons who died recently) are still functioning well at one year after surgery.
5. The results are even better for kidneys transplanted from living donors. One year after surgery, 97.96 percent of these kidneys were still functioning well.
6. In the United States fewer than 2.5% of patients with end-stage kidney disease undergo transplantation as their first treatment or therapy. The National Kidney Foundation is dedicated to educating kidney patients about the benefits of pre-emptive transplantation - when a person is able to go straight to transplant without dialysis they usually have good health outcome. 

Better picture of his port. It will be used for dialysis treatments when they start the chemotherapy on Friday. The chemotherapy will be used to create room in his bone marrow for Joe's stem cell's.

 

 

Today Michael and I did some cell phone Christmas shopping. As I came out of Macy's I saw the 3 Christmas trees, they reminded me of a powerful God who is bigger than all this. 

9 Days to Transplant.  You are not alone, and neither are we.  

Blessings, Lilly :)