So anyway, I got a kidney transplant

Thursday, January 8th started as an excessively ordinary day. I went to work (wearing new pants that I worried looked like pajama bottoms), planned to watch Is This Thing On? (which I had been putting off for one reason or another), and pondered the next flavor of overnight oats I would try, because I've become the kind of boring person who makes overnight oats.

And then, while on my home from work, my phone displayed a typically garbled voice-to-text message, and the only words that made sense were "kidney transplant" and "ASAP." Because my life is nothing if not slapstick comedy, I was on the subway, where the supposed free wifi is a theory more than a reality, so I had to wait until my train was on an outside track to call them back. The transplant coordinator all but ordered me to the hospital immediately, because there was a match on a kidney for me, and an "amazing opportunity" that I had to take.

The "amazing opportunity" was that the kidney was from a living donor, whereas I had been expecting to get one from a deceased donor. Unbeknownst to me, my transplant center participates in a program that matches kidneys from failed paired donations to patients on the deceased donor list. A living donor kidney is a game changer: the kidney "wakes up" faster, there are generally less complications post-surgery, and the projected life of the kidney itself at least doubles. While dumbfounded and not quite sure I hadn't dozed off the train and was dreaming, I accepted, quickly went home to gather my go bag, and went up to New Presbyterian-Weill Cornell Hospital in Manhattan. Less than four hours after I got there, I was on the table, and, well, I have a new kidney.

I was out of the hospital by Monday, which was not, as a lot of people have assumed, an insurance-based decision. 4 to 6 days in hospital is the general timeframe for most kidney transplants these days, barring any complications, because modern science is its own miracle, and once they have your pain managed and you're walking, eating, and pissing on your own there's not much more they can do you for than you can do for yourself at home. Other than I fucking hated and whined constantly about how uncomfortable the catheter was (negative stars), I did fine. My kidney started waking up right away. I managed to take a mile's worth of steps around the ward by my third day, the same day I started eating solid foods. The pain wasn't too bad, mostly manageable with Tylenol. And oh boy, am I peeing. I am peeing SO MUCH, you guys.

It'll be a week tomorrow, and it still doesn't feel quite real. I knew that it was going to be "soon," but that was something they had been telling me since at least the beginning of last year. I did turn down an earlier offer, because the deceased had some health issues that I wasn't prepared to address on top of all the other stuff that normally comes with a transplant. But I don't know that I expected to start the day by eating oatmeal and ending it in a hospital gown with my ass hanging out, and a nice man telling me he's about to give me "relaxing medication" and that when I woke up the whole thing would be over.

I definitely didn't expect that the kidney I'd receive would end up being from a living donor. A couple of attempts to secure a living donor directly for me didn't work out for various reasons, and though I kept telling myself that I'd do it "eventually," I was reluctant to put myself out there online to look for another potential donor. Social media has really fucked with my head about the idea of reaching out for genuine help and how people might react to it, but that's a whole other thing to write about for another time.

It hasn't been a complete breeze so far. I cannot emphasize how much I've been peeing since I got out of the hospital. It turns out that your bladder's reaction to having at least one working kidney again after several years of just two little shriveled sacks of nothing is to go into hyperdrive. It's getting better though, in that I only had to get up in the middle of the night last night to go three times, instead of eight times the night before that.

There are also the practical issues, like the fact that I pretty much can't go anywhere except doctors' appointments until April. I'll have to wait a bit to find out what the deal is with the Jimmy Savile-themed gang Jack O'Connor leads in 28 Years Later: The Bone Temple, and try not to spoil myself. No more sushi or rare red meat indefinitely, though transplant patient forums suggest that that eases off after a while, provided you're not, like, getting your sushi from Bob's Shure-Fine Sushi or whatever. My household is taking COVID-like precautions, and have gone through nearly an entire can of Lysol wipes already. We're masking, and I thank the Lord that I live somewhere where absolutely no one will give a shit about it.

Then there are the meds. So many meds, though according to the physician's assistant I saw yesterday it wasn't such a bad amount as far as kidney patients go. But compliance is crucial, like "it could cause rejection if you don't take it" crucial. I have to take them twice a day at the same time, every day, and keep taking them, despite whatever potentially unpleasant side effects I might experience (which haven't been much yet, but we'll see how it goes). We've all heard nightmare stories about prednisone, and, alas, that's one of the especially crucial ones. Evidently my current dose is considered "moderate," and as of next week I start tapering down to a low dose, but still. Whoever said "it's hard to tell the poison from the cure" was probably talking about prednisone, and I hope it does me more good than harm.

On a more existential level, I can already tell that I'm going to develop an all-new anxiety about phantom "signs of rejection," even though another helpful takeaway from spending time on transplant forums is that you shouldn't worry until your doctor tells you to worry. But, y'know, easier said than done, am I right? I'm going to be anxious about that, anxious about being exposed to something (although it's inevitable, and can be treated without issue, because science), anxious about being perceived as a good and cooperative patient. It sounds so stupid, but I don't want to let anyone down. It's taken this experience to realize how many people I've had rooting for me since the whole kidney thing went down five years ago, and while I know no one would hold it against me if something happened, I'd still feel like a failure, that it was my fault somehow, that I never deserved this incredible gift.

I'm anxious about the world I'll be coming back into when I can be a part of it again. Three months sounds both endless and barely a minute. Mostly, when I can start living life normally again (relatively speaking), I don't want to do it with a clock ticking loudly in my head, reminding me that reset buttons on life don't last forever. But does anyone's?