NOT for the faint of heart

If you tend to get queasy looking at stitches, incisions and the like, you're probably not going to enjoy the following pictures. Let this be your warning. :)

This is the IV where Tim had fluids, anti-rejection meds, pain meds, anti-nausea meds and anything else you can think of pumped in to him. There was a tube, probably about 6 inches long, that went in to his neck, held in place with stitches around the light and dark blue box looking things. I guess the veins in your arm aren't big enough to handle all the stuff they had to pump in there, so they hit the jugular. This was the source of a lot of Tim's discomfort. Everything pulled on it. His gown, the nurses, rolling over, turning his head... not fun.

This is Timmy's incision. It's about 10 inches long and on his lower right abdomen. (I think I counted 31 staples, yowza!) His new kidney sits in this little pocket next to his hip. I like to think of it as an ovary. They leave his other two kidneys where they are, and eventually they kind of shrivel up like raisins. Unless they start releasing funky toxins in to his system, they don't bother with them.

This is Kim's tummy. Her incision is right above her belly button, about 4-5 inches, with two smaller incisions towards the left. Rumor has it the surgeon put his left hand in the incision, and moved her intestines and anything else that was in front of the kidney. Then with scopes through the other two incisions, cut the connector thingys (yes these are the medical terms, something also about veins, arteries and ureters) Then slid the kidney out just above her belly button. She definitely had the worse of the two surgeries. While we were in the hospital, she said if felt like she got punched in the stomach.

Those curly-que wires? That's a lovely contraption, an ON-Q (sp?) ball, that delivers anesthetic directly to their incisions. They both had this little fanny pack/purse that hung out with them, just dripping in the good stuff. It was pretty cool to see them take it out. We thought the wire would be 2 or 3 inches going in to their tummy. Nope! More like 6... 8... it was freaking long.

Needless to say, I'm sure both our patients are more than thrilled to not be hooked up to all that stuff anymore.