I just got off the phone with Wes.  He has had a rough evening.  Around 5:30 he went for a walk and was having extreme gas pains.  He began perspiring and his surgery site was hurting.  He has not had any food since this afternoon.  They were going to put him on solids tonight but with the pain he hasn’t eaten anything yet.

He has been sitting in an upright position for the past 3 and 1/2 hours waiting for the gas pain to subside.  The nurse just gave him some more pain medicine and once it kicks in, he is planning to try to get up and walk again and see if that will help move the gas out.  He is exhausted and being pushed to the limit with patience.

Please continue to uplift him in prayer.  I am not able to be with him tonight but I plan to be there first thing in the morning after the kids get off to school.

Karen

Wes’ surgery went well today, although it was not exactly as we expected. What we were hoping would be a 1.5 hour surgery ended up being 4 hours. When Dr. Ramirez went in, he discovered that the tear was not a small hole but almost the length of the entire transplant incision. He had to look around for the ends of the intestinal wall lining in order to pull them together and attach them. Because it was such a large tear, he put a mesh “patch” over the repaired tear to help strengthen it. Wes has a temporary drain on it that allows excess fluid to exit the body. He will be staying in the hospital over night tonight and possibly Sat night as well.

Since the surgery was a lot more involved, Wes is experiencing more pain than we anticipated. They have him on Dilauded, the big pain killer they used after his transplants. He was in the recovery room for at least 4 hours waiting for a hospital room to become available. As soon as he got into his room they hooked him up on a PCA drip to help manage the pain. I am telling you about Wes’ pain but he says,”I wouldn’t call it fun but compared to last time, this is a breeze.” To our delight, some of the nurses from previous surgeries are taking care of him. We love the nurses of 7 Northeast!

Wes is doing just fine We are still anticipating a quick recovery and will hear more from Dr. Ramirez in the morning and keep you posted.

Karen

Just spoke with Dr. Mike who is a part of the transplant team. He explained that when Wes went down for surgery, they used a more sophisticated ultra sound and x-ray machine than the C/T scan. They looked more closely at where the pain is and have determined that surgery will not be necessary. When the kidney was implanted it was planted near a nerve called the testicular nerve and that nerve runs down the inner thigh and abdomen and into the scrotum. There is blood around that nerve and it is putting pressure on his testicular nerve. This will now help you understand the kind of pain he was/is in!

Wes’ body should absorb the blood shortly with no outside intervention needed. The pain will persist as before so it will be managed with strong pain medication.

They also got reports back on Wes’ urine. He has some kind of infection (possibly UTI) so that may be a cause of pain as well. The docs are putting him on anti-biotics and have little worries about clearing it up.

Everything else is looking really good. The kidney looks great. All the scans show that Wes will have to deal with some pain for a little while but it should subside soon. If it doesn’t they can give him a nerve blocker as a last resort.

It seems like things are constantly changing but there are multiple teams that are looking over Wes and keeping a close eye on every level and sign. They want this all to work as much as we do.

We love, appreciate and adore you all. Thanks for your unending support and love.

Karen

Wes spent the last 24 hours in excruciating pain with very few pockets of time where he wasn’t clenching his hospital bed in tremendous pain.  This morning he had a C/T Scan and the results of the scan show that in his lower abdomen just below the new kidney there is an internal Hematoma. This means that there is at least blood and possibly other liquids (like urine) collecting and it could press on the new kidney and cause damage.  Apparently, this is the source of his pain. The issue is complicated by all the blood thinners Wes is on the doctors don’t know exactly how they are going to treat it until they go in.

In the next few hours Wes will be going in for emergency surgery to have an external drain put in.  It will be attached to a bag on his leg and depending on what liquids come out, it may remain there for few days or a few months.  For sure, it will extend Wes’ hospital stay for a few more days.  This surgery should end the pain.

I had a sleepless night last night.  I couldn’t sleep knowing that Wes was in the hospital with so much pain.  I woke up in the middle of the night with dry heaves and feeling very weary.  This morning my friend Barb came over to the house to help get the kids off to school.  She also brought me down to the hospital so I could be with Wes.  As well, my friend Denise picked up Kasey so she could play with her daughter for the day.

Obviously this is a bit of a set back and a discouragement but an encouragement that we know what it is.  Please just continue to pray that this will give us opportunities to grow in our faith and make God’s name famous.

Karen

PS- the new kidney is doing great!  This will help protect it.

It is 1:15am and Wes is still in a lot of pain.  Pain medicine is not helping and his bowels are not moving. Please pray for both he,me and his parents.  His parents went back to the hospital to be with him while I stay home with the children.

His pain began around 9:00am but has been severe since about 6:30pm.  It has been severe for 7 hours or so.  Please pray for wisdom for the doctors and strength for Wes.

Karen