New kidney🫘 - I’m finally transplanted!!

Hello!! I’m finally transplanted🥹 and feel well enough to quickly journey this transplant journey down because I forgot some little details.

Having a transplant has been on the back of my mind for years now. It was something I kept holding back on as I’m afraid of the uncertainties. It feels so surreal that I’m now finally transplanted 🥹 Little bean 🫘 is doing very well in my body. I cannot be more thankful that my donor (who’s my husband) is healthy and safe. Also, little bean is working amazingly well. I’m very blessed and grateful.

🫘 Pre-transplant process

My husband and I don’t have the same blood type. In the past, different blood type transplant cannot be done because once they placed the kidney in, the recipient’s immune system will immediately attack the kidney and the organ will fail immediately. With medical advancement, ABO incompatible transplant can be safely done now.

I was admitted to hospital 1.5 weeks earlier to undergo plasmapheresis. I’m blood type O and my husband is A. People with blood type O has Anti-A and Anti-B antibodies that will attack type A or B blood. Since my husband is A, the anti-A in my body will attack my husband’s kidney so I’ll have to go through plasmapheresis to get rid of my anti-A so there’s no anti-A in my blood stream that will attack the kidney.

I’m not going to lie. The 1.5 weeks was very tough. As I’m quite young, my immune system is relatively robust. So once my body detects that the anti-A levels in my blood is low, my bone marrow starts creating more anti-A very quickly 😭 from the start, it was quite hard to even remove my anti-A. There are many different types of plasmapheresis. The particular one that is well known to be effective doesn’t even work on me. It doesn’t remove my anti-A fast enough. Eventually I’ve to fall back to the most aggressive way - total plasma exchange. The other plasmapheresis only remove Anti-A in my blood. Total plasma exchange remove ALL MY PLASMA. Our blood is made of 45% red blood cells and 55% plasma, white blood cells and platelets. It’s very aggressive because it technically remove everything, leaving behind just your red blood cells. However to make up for the loss, I’ve to receive donated plasma from blood bank. Each session I’ve to take about 2-3L of donated plasma. I’ve lost count of how many donated plasma I’ve received😢 Ive whole body numbness on the first session of total plasma exchange. It was the most tortuous 3h of my life. Second session went smoothly with no issues. Third session I had hives on my ENTIRE BODY. Beg them to stop but they say it’ll be a waste of donated plasma so they ask me to try to tolerate. In the end my blood clotted in the machine and I suffered blood loss (350-500ML) when I’m already super anemic. I don’t like total plasma exchange at all because at the end of each session my body felt super unwell and tired. It’s worst than dialysis to be honest.

I’ve tried other types of plasmapheresis for one week before they decided to use the most aggressive way. It just sucks that the other types of plasmapheresis did not work out for me. The entire 1.5 weeks, I’m basically either doing dialysis or plasmapheresis. Some days my antibodies just keep coming back and the doctor had to schedule dialysis and plasmapheresis on the same day😭 I’ve 3.5 hours of dialysis follow by 6h of plasmapheresis. It was very tough. Imagine being hold to a machine for 9-10hours straight and the machine kept drawing and returning blood at a high speed. Eventually with the daily dialysis and plasmapheresis, I really feel like my heart is giving up on me. My heart rate went very crazy 110-120 per min and I constantly feel heart palpitations. Sometimes it’s so bad when I get connected to the machine I feel breathless. Few days before surgery, I told my husband I cannot do this any longer because I feel like my heart is giving up on me. I also heard from the nurses that there’re some (older) patients that gave up halfway because the daily plasmapheresis and dialysis is too hard on their body and they don’t feel well. They eventually gave up on getting the transplant and went home. I didn’t want to give up because I’ve already came a long way. I tolerated all the sessions and survived 😭 I’m just very thankful I survived this. My heart rate went even higher (130 per min) during and after the surgery for about 1-2 weeks. Now that I’m transplanted I’m no longer doing dialysis too 🥳 so my heart rate came down quite a lot (70-90 per min) thank you my heart for tolerating this 🥹

🫘Surgery day

9 October 2024 - a day I’ll remember forever.

After 1.5 weeks of hard times, it’s finally surgery day!! My husband and I woke up bright and early to shower because we won’t be able to shower for the next two days. My husband came over to my ward and we just chatted for 30 minutes before he has to go for surgery at 7:30AM. Said our last goodbyes and the porter pushed him down. I cried and cried. I was scheduled to get pushed down around 9:30-10AM. The wait was torturous.

At 10AM, the porter finally came to push me down. Once I reached the theatre, I started crying all the way until I get my general anaesthesia. The nurses kept asking me not to cry but I can’t help it. My tears just kept falling. My husband and my operating theatre is just side by side. It’s a connecting theatre so I can look into his theatre through little holes. The more I look at his theatre the more I cry. Finally I think the GA doctor can’t take it anymore and decided to let me sleep. I’m secretly glad she let me sleep because I can’t take myself too. I just can’t control my tears.

I remember the nurses asking me to breathe through the mask and the next thing I remember is the nurses waking me up and asking how am I. I told them I’m in pain and they immediately gave me 2g of morphine. Morphine is great.. took my pain away almost instantly. The next thing I asked is about my husband and they told me that his surgery went well too and he’s already back at ward. I also heard the nurse said that I’ve already made 200ML of urine. When I heard that it was like a huge relief 😮‍💨 urine = good kidney function. I’ve had have a few surgeries but the GA is a lot stronger this time round.. I can barely open my eyes and all I really want to do is just sleep. I think the GA is so strong this time round because the surgery is longer (4-5h). They immediately sent me for a CT scan right after I’m awake and I heard from the doctor that CT looks good. I also saw my parents and in laws on the way to CT but I can’t open my eyes for too long.

The surgery day passed quickly as I’m asleep most of the day 😂 I just slept though out until the next day. Few doctors came to see me but I can’t really remember what we spoke about because I was so drowsy. I also wanted to video call my husband but I can’t open my eyes. Managed to call him for 1-2 mins to ask him how he is and immediately concuss after. Oh forgot to mention that my throat was so so so dry. I’ve never had such dry throat in my entire life. I asked the nurse for water and I think I drank too much I ended up vomiting it out. Luckily I didn’t vomit my transplant medicine out.

I’m just very grateful that the surgery went well for my husband and he’s safe and healthy. Little bean is also working great.

🫘 Recovery

Immediately after surgery, I basically slept the whole entire day off. It was good to be able to sleep it off because the pain is the most intense on the first day.

The second day was tough too because I’m no longer drowsy so I can feel the pain even more. I can’t seem to lie straight on bed too because I’m worried I’ll tear open my wound. The doctors want us to get out of bed immediately on the second day to promote healing and also help pass gas.

To be honest, the pain doesn’t really bother me because I can get oral painkillers. Nobody told me about the bloating. OMG. THE. BLOATING. IS. THE. KILLER. I felt so bloated my tummy look like 5 months pregnant. I’ve never seen my tummy so fat in my entire life. Being so bloated also means that I can’t eat anything. I was so eager to get out of bed immediately so I can pass gas and feel less bloated. The nurses sponged me and help me sit out on the chair for an hour. Getting out of the bed initially was tough but the first step is always the toughest. I was very determined to recover fast so I quickly get off the bed and transferred myself to the chair. Finally the physiotherapist came and we did some exercises. Also walked 10 rounds around the room. Sitting on the chair alone made me pass gas once. But after walking, I managed to pass lots of gas!! It felt amazing but I’m still bloated 😞 doctor decided to give me laxatives to help get rid of more gas. I took the laxatives on day 3 and went to the toilet finally!! I’m less bloated but still bloated 🫠 I try my best to eat as much as I can but my appetite for the first week definitely wasn’t great. My appetite is getting better every passing day. I’m day 17 post op today and I’m feeling more and more like my old self now! In terms of waking, the first steps are always the hardest. After the physiotherapist walk with me on day 2, I managed to shower myself on day 3 🥹 it was tough to shower myself because I feel so tired after showering myself but all these get better each passing day!

Today I can walk quite normally now (cannot walk too fast yet) and I eat quite well now. Shower is now getting a lot easier.

Unfortunately I’m still in hospital 🫠 with an unknown discharge date due to my anti-A levels. It keeps going up. Please pray for me that my anti-A stops growing.

Little bean is also working so well for me🥹 removed all my water retention I can see my double eyelids so clearly now!!

I also want to thank my donor, my dear husband😭 thank you for your gift of life. You’re so selfless I don’t know what else to say. Thank you for loving me enough to give me a part of you. Pls always be happy and healthy!

That’s all I can remember for now!! Will post again if I remember anything else!