Looking for the details

Recap from last post- I was sent to the hospital due to extremely high blood pressures, then admitted to the pediatric intensive care unit due to having end stage renal failure.

When first in the hospital room, we truly had no idea what was going to be in our future. The next day, October 28th, I had an artery in my nose cauterized to stop the nose bleeds. Then, the following day on October 29th, they preformed a biopsy on my kidneys to determine the extent of my renal failure.  For those who may not know, a kidney biopsy is when you are put to sleep and they go in through the back to take a few samples of your kidney for further testing. This put me in some of the worst pains that I have ever felt, but I was still thinking I would be home in a day or two and would be back to playing volleyball. I was even planning on trying out for a new travel team when i got discharged. October 30th was pretty much just a day of waiting but I did get moved to a regular room which was nice. When in the new room, I took a nice, hot shower and ate dinner and was feeling great. Then, my Nephrologist came into my room because the biopsy results were back. He then explained to us that my kidneys were 90% scarred with only 10% function left and that it was irreversible. Of course, I had no idea what this meant until he explained what our next steps were. He said that I would need to start dialysis as soon as possible and would definitely need a kidney transplant to live. I had no clue what dialysis even was and was beyond scared. He explained that I would have surgery the next day to place 2 different dialysis catheters, one that was hemodialysis which is dialysis done by filtering the blood and this would be temporary until my other catheter healed, this would have to be done in a clinic. The other catheter was peritoneal dialysis which would be in my stomach and could be done at home nightly. I was completely shocked and felt as if I were frozen. When the doctor left and my parents came to check on me I broke down. I was scared out of my mind and didn’t want two things connected to me for who knew how long. My parents consoled me letting me know that it would all be okay and that we would get through this together and that God would carry me through this journey. All i can say is boy did He! That night was a night of confusion, worries, and disbelief. As I laid in bed trying to go to sleep, I couldn’t from my mind racing about the surgery I would be having the very next day. I researched what the dialysis catheters would look like and that was most definitely a mistake. All that brought was more stress and anxiety. All of the pictures looked crazy and not even one of them was what the actual catheters looked like. The morning of the surgery, October 31st was a stressful, hectic, and anxiety filled day. I was pretty much just waiting and waiting. They finally came in my room to get me and take me to the pre op rooms and the surgeon came in the room to talk to me and my parents and they informed us that they had also found a mature grown teratoma on my right ovary which would explain why I had missed my period for so long(10 months). They explained that they needed to remove the mass and that they would most likely have to remove my ovary because the mass seemed to consume the whole ovary. Of course this worried me tremendously about my future but, they then informed me that i would be able to become pregnant just as easily as a person with both of their ovaries. Them telling me this right before they took me to pre op really scared me because I was already freaking out. Even though I was scared out of my mind, I still knew and trusted that God would get me through this and give me a story to tell after. I was so lucky that God blessed me with the exact nurse that I needed to help me get ready for surgery and wheel me down. She was so sincere and nice, she asked me how I was and told me that if I needed someone to talk to that I could talk to her and that she also had kidney disease and still played volleyball in college. This made me tear up and I felt relief and assurance that I was going to be okay.  I started asking her questions and she helped me to calm down. I truly believe that God sent her to be my Angel that I needed on this insanely hard, life changing day.  When they started to wheel me down to pre op this is when it all really sank in and I became scared to what I was going to wake up to. While in pre op an emergency case came up and so they sent me back to my room until there was an opening. I was pretty glad that I could comprehend this some more but, I also just wanted to go ahead and get this over with. When back in my room, I don’t really remember how long it was before they came back to get me for surgery. All I remember is them coming to get me and taking me to the operating room. Thankfully my parents got to walk me all the way down to the operating room right outside of the room that my surgery would take place in. While in the hallway outside of the room, my parents finished signing some papers and then the anesthesiologist gave me some medicine called Versed to calm me and my nerves down which really helped. I then told my parents that I loved them and would see them soon and then was rolled into the OR. To be honest when I went into the OR for the first time, the first thing that came to my mind was that this OR looked nothing like what it does in Greys Anatomy. I even told the people in there “well, this doesn’t look like Greys Anatomy” which made them laugh. When on the table and they started putting the medicine in my iv to put me to sleep, I started singing in my head “you say I am loved, when I can’t feel a thing, you say I am strong, when I think I am weak, and you say I am held, when I am falling short, and when I don’t belong, oh You say I am Yours.” This song “You Say” by Lauren Daigle, had been my favorite song for a while. When I woke up from surgery, I felt absolutely awful, I was already hooked up to my first hemodialysis treatment and when I looked over I could see my blood running through a tube to a machine that was cleaning my blood and then putting it back into my body, which of course was a CRAZY sight. I was in crazy amounts of pain in my right shoulder area where my hemodialysis catheter was, and also in my stomach where they removed my right ovary and inserted a peritoneal dialysis catheter. When in and out of sleep I remember feeling so much peace from Jesus that I simply just can’t even explain and put into words. He was ALL in that room. 

Song- You Say by Lauren Daigle

verse- I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me. Philippians 4:13

Prayer- Dear Lord I thank you for blessing me with this story to tell and I ask that you use it to help as many people as possible to come to you and build an unbreakable relationship with you and for You to get all of the glory Lord. Without you we are nothing, but with You all things are possible. Amen

Next post topic- The start of my new normal