the swap

my alarm clock went off at 5:30am at Children's Mercy on the morning of October 25, 2010. i would say that i got a good solid 4 1/2 hours of sleep. owen was still asleep so i took all of personal belonging down to nicks room because they could stay there due to nick would go back there after his surgery. on the way into his room the nurses asked me to wake him up and have get change into his gown and get his wedding ring from him. as i was slipping his wedding ring onto my finger it really really hit that he was going to be having surgery too.

my sisters, my mom, nick's mom, liv and adaira all arrived to our rooms around 6:15am. the nurses came to take us the OR around 7am. owen was in a pretty silly mood. he was able to get plenty of sleep the night before. nick on the other hand said he didn't sleep very well.

nick, owen and i were led into the OR recovery room while the rest of the gang were taken to the surgery waiting room which wasn't quite open yet. jill met everybody else down there. in the OR nick and i had to sign all the consent forms and hear all the potential risks and complications again from the surgeons. at about 7:30-7:45am they told me it us time for me to go. while i did cry on my walk down to elevator and into the surgery waiting room, i do have to say i was a lot more calm and at peace then i thought i might be. don't get me wrong, walking out of that room leaving those two boys in there has to be one of hardest thing i've ever done but something came over me. i was so scared of being in that waiting room without nick but having all my wonderful loving family there before i was in there and staying with me the whole time made it so easy. i also owe a thank you to all the friends that stopped by, it helped break up the long hours. rachel, the transplant coordinator, would come down to give us updates every few hours. at 9am we heard that they were still working on getting to nicks kidney and the had just made the first incision on owen. at 11am nicks kidney was out and so was owens other kidney. she said that owen kidney was the size of a chicken nugget and nicks was the size of a chicken breast. nicks kidney was perfectly healthy. it was crazy to think that this nurse just saw with her own eyes my husband and sons kidneys and then came down to talk to me about it. at 12pm they said nick was in recovery and they were placing owens new kidney. at 1pm nick was coming out of recovery and heading back to his room. nick's mom and i went back with him. the first thing he said to me was "tell the nurse these pain meds aren't working" then when right back to sleep :-) nick's mom stayed with nick for awhile while went back to the surgery waiting room to wait for owen. at about 3pm we got the call that owen surgery was over and the surgeons would be down. the surgeons were so happy with how thing went. it couldn't have gone better. nick's kidney started working almost instantly. owen was already off the breathing tube. they were able to put the kidney a little to the side and not right up front. there should be no bulge. they were also able to completely close him up. it was all great news from them :-) at 5:30 i finally got to go into the PICU and see my owen. i was more than ready...it had been 10 hours.

nick has been in more pain then he thought that he might be. he finally got out of bed late today. they took out his catheter so he needed to use the restroom and he sat up in a chair for about an hour. he hasn't ate anything yet but i do believe that he has been drinking some sprite. i have only been able to go up to see him a few times. owen doesn't want to be left alone and he is still in the PICU which is 3 floors down. i've had some several visitor today :-) some of them were able to sit with owen while i ran to check on nick and grab a bite to eat.

owen has been doing amazingly well. i think he has some super self-healing powers. first things he said to me were "i missed you" and "what are we doing after this". both comments confirmed he was still my same amazing owen :-) he is still having pain that they are manging with pain meds. the biggest thing that they have to manage right now are his fluids and blood pressure. nicks kidney is used to working and pumping fluid to a much bigger body. so they have to give owen body extra fluid to keep up with it. they are putting in as much fluid as it is giving out, which is about 250ml every 30min. all that fluid dilutes his blood and lowers his blood pressure which they want to keep high so for the time being he is on a med for that. nicks kidney will eventually adapt to owens volume size but they want to gradually give it time to do so, so they don't kill it. today he's been sleeping off and on. about every 20 min. he told me he was hungry and wanted breakfast but they would only let him have ice chips, which he said were not chips and wanted nothing to do with them. he was saying some pretty funny things last night after he kicked off all his blankets (picture above) "do i have school next week?" "i sting!!!" and "after breakfast tomorrow can i take a nap?"

this was my dinner date tonite :-) julie and glenn (nick's parents) brought him up to see me and sat with owen while i had dinner with noah and visited nick.

nick was feeling a little bit better and was so happy to see noah :-)

when i got back to owen he was all smiles because he had learned that he was going to get eat some real food. he couldn't take that smile off his face. he got some orange jello and a few sips of chocolate milk. he is now peacefully sleeping. i'm going to try to sneak out of here to go take a shower in nick's room. i'm still in the clothes i was wearing yesterday, hoodie jacket and all...:-/

this is my chair. the feet do come up but i learn today that it should completely recline but is broken. owen should get to go to a regular room tomorrow morning and i thought i would never say this but i can't wait to get to sleep on that plastic covered parent bed. i promise i won't complain about it for at least a few days ;-)

thanks again for all the love

am