The day finally came! Mark went into the pre-op around 5:45 am. We were sitting in the waiting room with our donor, Tori, before he went in to surgery. Mark and I shared an emotional hug, and he was prepped for surgery. Once they had all the IV's hooked up and such, my mom and I were able to go back and see Mark. We were able to spend about another 45 minutes with Mark and Tori (who as in the same room) before they left for surgery for good. Tori left first, then Mark left 10 minutes later.
Wow, the emotions began to flow then! I was totally freaking out watching the board with his ID number. The surgery started around 7:30 am and after a long, long, 4 hours they called us up to talk to the doctor. The doctor said everything went well--the kidney turned pink and began to create urine right away. Mark had minimal bleeding and did not need a transfusion. There would be another 2 hour wait until we could see him. Miranda, my neighbor came by to help me through this and between her and my mother they kept me talking at lunch--trying to keep me from thinking about Mark. They did a fairly good job, cause by the time we were going up to the 2nd floor Mark already had a room.
We went up to his room and as I was entering the room Mark was being moved from the surgery table to the bed---let me tell you he was in such pain. I almost went in there and kicked all their butts, but decided to listen and go back into the waiting room until they were ready. Another long, agonizing 10-15 minutes went by and the time finally came!
Mark was in a lot of pain when I first saw him. Even the "every 6 minute shot of cocktail" wasn't seeming to ease his pain. I was so so scared and wanted to do everything I could to help him ease his pain. One thing Mark said though was that he was hungry--some things never change!
Well, by this evening his pain was a little better. Tomorrow he will get to eat "real food" and he will be getting up and walking.
Tori will be able to go home tomorrow. She is an amazing person!
Well, I am off for now. I will update more later. Thank you for all the thoughts and prayers---it helped us get through this today! I'll leave you with the words of Mark--within the first hour or two after he was recovering I asked him how he felt and he said "like a cherry pie exploding in his mouth!" For those of you that really know Mark, I think he is on the road to recovery!
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