Author: Lisa -Southern Patches

Hello everyone, my name is Lisa I am a southern girl born and raised in East Tennessee. I love discovering new places and things to do. I have a lot of favorites, shopping, traveling, knitting and photography are all at the top of my list. I am married with my fur babies my only children. This blog is actually named after my beloved basset hound Patches. She passed away a few years ago but will always have a huge part of my heart. Come with me and we will explore some wonderful places and discover some really fun things. Are you ready?

Happy Birthday to Baby Kay ( It’s a kidney)

It was a Thursday exactly eleven years ago on this date February 24th 2011. It was 3:00 AM. My husband and I were about four hours from home in a hotel room in Downtown Nashville, TN. We had been awake most of the night. Several of our family members were staying in nearby rooms. At 5:00 AM we would all drive the short distance to Vanderbilt Medical Center and check in for surgery. My husband Mark was getting a new kidney and I would be the donor.

This picture was taken as we were leaving the hospital on the Sunday following the surgery. We were headed to a local hotel that would be our home for a couple of weeks.

My husband discovered he needed a kidney in the summer of 2010. He didn’t even know he was in kidney failure. A routine blood work-up revealed that he had a really high creatinine level. Many many more tests were done that summer into the fall and in October of 2010 he was put on the donor list to receive a new kidney. His doctors told us he could possibly be on the waiting list for several years and that we should look for a living donor.

Fortunately he did not have to wait long. I knew that we were the same blood type and I wanted to be tested to see if I might be a match. The doctors told us not to be too hopeful because the chances would only be about 15% that I would be a match. One test after another was given to me and I kept being compatible. The doctors decided not to test anyone else until I was ruled out as a donor match. We had to go through counseling and lots of the same tests but with different doctors. Each doctor had to make a separate ruling on whether I would be eligible. Then when that decision was made by the individual doctors the results went before an entire panel of doctors at Vanderbilt.

My tests were finished in December of 2010. Mark did not have to spend one minute on dialysis and for this we are so very grateful. But we knew dialysis could happen if he got the flu or pneumonia or anything that could compromise his health and cause his kidney function to decline rapidly.

So we waited and waited for the results. It seemed like forever but it wasn’t only a few weeks. In mid January of 2011 we got the answer we had prayed for, I was a match!!!I would be the donor!!! The surgery was scheduled for February 24th 2011. We had a lot of work to do before that day. We made arrangements to take time off from work. I would need to be out two to four weeks and Mark probably six weeks. We made arrangements to board our baby Patches our basset hound. We had to get a living will and a medical power of attorney. Normally I would have been Mark’s medical power of attorney, to make a medical decision about him if needed, and he would have been mine. But because we would both be having surgery at the same time we had to pick someone else. We chose my sister Sandy who was with us through the entire adventure.

At 7:00 AM on the morning of the surgery date I was taken down first to the operating room and my kidney was prepared for the removal. We could each have one person with us. I chose my sister Sandy and Mark picked his dad. His dad was a Korean War Veteran and one of the strongest men I have ever seen but when he came to wish me good luck, just before the surgery, there were tears in his eyes. At approximately 9:00 AM Mark was brought down to an adjoining room beside me and he was prepped for his surgery. They took the kidney from me, walked through the adjoining room and placed it into Mark’s abdomen. I guess if this had been Grey’s Anatomy this is where they would have dropped it HA!!!! I was really surprised that it was put in the abdomen but that is much simpler than putting it back in the original spot. So technically Mark had three kidneys for a short while. The other two have long quit working.

My surgery was done laparoscopically so my recovery time was very short. Mark’s recovery took a little longer. We spent three days in the hospital and left on Sunday. Since we had doctor visits three times a week to keep a check on the kidney we had to stay at the hotel in Nashville to be close to the hospital. If we had had the transplant closer to home we could have stayed at home and gone to the doctor visits from home. My two sisters, Sandy and Pat stayed there with us at the hospital for almost two weeks. We had adjoining rooms. They took care of us, took us to our appointments, did our laundry and brought us take out. They were and still are angels and we will never ever forget them for the time they took out of their lives and their other family members to be with us.

We don’t have children so we named the kidney Baby Kay. We celebrate every year and this year Baby Kay is eleven years old. Mark takes anti rejection meds every day and will for his entire life. He has done great. He works full time, works out and we travel with no problems. He sees his doctor three times a year. I am on no meds and I sometimes forget I only have one kidney. I can’t tell the difference. Of course Covid scared the crap out of us because it is so much harder for Mark to fight off any disease because of all the immunosuppressants that he takes. So far we have been very fortunate. Mark did have a scary bout with the shingles virus a couple of years ago and had to be out in the hospital for a few days. But other than that it has been uneventful.

There are 93,000 people on the kidney transplant list. Over 3,000 new patients are added to the kidney waiting list each month.
13 people die each day while waiting for a life-saving kidney transplant.
Every 14 minutes someone is added to the kidney transplant list.
The average wait time for an individual’s first kidney transplant is 3.6 years and can vary depending on health, compatibility and availability of organs.

Mark and I have been truly blessed with the path his transplant took. But there are so many many people needing a kidney to live. If you are ever faced with the decision to donate for someone I would encourage you to really consider it. At the very least I would encourage you to sign your driver’s license and discuss it with your family if you choose to be a donor. I would be happy to share more of our experience with you.

So Happy Birthday to Baby Kay. And many many many more. Giving my kidney to my husband is the best thing I have ever done. I would do it a million times again if I could.

Always remember

Love your day your way!!!!

A New Week, A New Gate

Hello and happy Sunday, how was your week? Another crazy week here at the old Casa.

Last Monday was Valentine’s Day. I don’t know how much you celebrate but me and the hubs are pretty low key on it these days. I ask if he was getting me something and he said yes. I said have you bought it? he said no. I said I would love to have yarn. He said that was fine with him and off I went to buy for Valentine’s Day. That is how we roll around here. I like flowers but they are so expensive and do not last. I like candy but definitely don’t need it and I do love yarn and I can never get enough of it so it was a win win. Very romantic I know heee heee!!!

I actually spent Valentine’s Day with my Sister. She had to have a procedure done in Knoxville and I took her. We had to be in Knoxville at 7:00 AM. I had to leave my house at 5:30 AM to get to her house by 6:00 so we could make the almost one hour drive to Knoxville. The hubs also had to work that morning so he was up and helped take care of all the babies’ feeding and outside time. The procedure went very well and I was back home by 2:00 so I took a short nap since I had gotten up at 3:30.

It was a busy week a lot of different things going on, My sister and her procedure, I had to take Molly for an allergy shot, Sister lunch and work of course but I guess the thing that stands out the most is The Gate. Let me explain.

My husband and I have been married for more than thirty years. We have been through a lot together, a kidney transplant, with me being the donor for him, job changes, we have built two houses together, one house to live in and one house to sell. So you see those are things that can be challenging for a couple. Especially the building of the houses. But nothing and I repeat nothing has ever caused us to disagree more than the gate we decided to have installed at the top of our driveway.

Our driveway is very long, a lot of people drive down our driveway not realizing that it is a private drive. Now that we have all the kitties and they are out on the driveway someone could come down the drive and run over one of them. I can’t even think about that. So we decided to install a gate at the top to prevent anyone from coming in. Plus a gate would add extra security. When they say that Men are from Mars and Women are from Venus, were they ever right, whoever they may be. I totally thought my husband knew what I wanted in a gate and he thought I knew what he wanted and it was supposed to be somewhat the same thing. Wrong!!!

On Monday when I came home from taking my sister to Knoxville the men who were putting in the gate were at the top of our driveway. They have done lots of work for us. They built our deck on the back of the house a few years ago. We know and love them. None of the happenings in this story was totally their fault. I waved as I went through and went on in to take that nap I mentioned. On Monday all they did was set some poles so nothing too exciting with the gate.

On Tuesday hubs called and said they were working on the gate and it was almost finished. He was so happy and excited. I couldn’t wait to see it.

When I pulled into the driveway that afternoon all I could see was this huge wooden fortress looking thing with a metal gate in the middle. The wood on either side of the gate was not even. It was so uneven that it actually hurt your eyes to look at it. Because of the property line, so I am told, one side of the wooden fortress was much shorter than the other. Also the gate almost looked like it was off its hinge the way it was hanging. I drove on down to the house in shock. Hubs came bounding out of the house all excited. “Do you love it”? he asked. Lord I just couldn’t help it I was so ugly about that gate. NO!!!! I said. “I hate it”. It’s not what I expected at all. I thought it was going to have one post on each side. It looks like a fortress. A jacked up fortress!!! Who do I look like? freaking Rapunzel?? I knew I was terribly over reacting about the gate but I was so disappointed. He said they had been in a bit of a hurry and would be back the next day to straighten out anything we didn’t like. I suggested they remove it. This didn’t go over too well. We live in a very rural area and certainly don’t need anything fancy but it wasn’t what I had in mind. Lots of heated words were exchanged that night. We called a wary truce and called it a night.

After much deliberation on the gate we decided to extend the other side to make it more even. I know!!! even more fortressy looking. But at this point I was unsure what would help. When they returned a couple of days later we, me and hubs, both met with them at the house. I told them we had had some miscommunication with each other. Me and hubs, not them. Because we were close to the property line we were not going to be able to add more wood to the other side of the fortress. They suggested we shorten the longer side and make the two sides even. Well yeah!!!! That is what I had in mind in the first place. So they took half of it out, they rehung the gate and redid the wood slats. We still have a lot of work to do. We have to paint the wood and we bought those cute little solar end caps to go on the posts. We will also plant shrubs around it. I will definitely show before and after pictures when it is all done. And I guess for now the divorce is on hold. Rapunzel has spoken.

Always remember

Love your day your way!!!