One Month Donor Check-up

Yesterday morning I had my one month check-up with my surgeon. This involved blood work, an ultrasound and a meeting with my surgeon and the live donor coordinator. The blood work was the typical jamming of a needle in my arm and removing a few vials worth of blood. The ultrasound was pretty comprehensive. The technician took lots of pictures of my insides from many different angles. At some point I started to get concerned because it was taking so long, but I think they needed to look at all the major arteries going into the liver, the cut side, and the opposite side, to check for growth. Apparently my liver is growing quite well. She couldn’t say how much because an ultrasound can’t accurately measure volume, but she saw part of it near my stomach. Which might explain why my stomach is a little sensitive these days. Maybe it’s getting pushed on by the new liver parts.

When my surgeon came in the room his whole face lit up and he said, “Hey! There she is! Hello sunshine!” Then he gave me a great big hug. He sat down at the computer to check my test results, stopped for a minute and gave me an exploding fist bump. I showed him that particular handshake at our last meeting and I was impressed he remembered! He was anxious to see how my incision had been healing and I was anxious to show him the little plastic staple that was sticking out of my belly button. One of the other surgeons, the one who closed me up, said that it was probably a little close to the surface so it decided to push itself out instead of dissolving like the others. When my surgeon saw it, he rolled his eyes. “I hate these stupid things, I’m taking it out.” I freaked a little because I was sure it would hurt. He assured me it wouldn’t and a few seconds later it was gone. Phew! It wasn’t really hurting me, but it was annoying and I was worried it would get caught on something. Bleh. I think I just got a little sick to my stomach.

When we were all done he gave me another big hug and told me he was so happy to see me and that he was thrilled I was doing so well. Then I told him that it was Derek and my anniversary and showed him the photos from the blog post. He told me we were both ridiculous and that he absolutely loved us. What a sweet guy. Seriously, we are both so lucky that we have such an amazing team of doctors, nurses and support staff at the hospital. They have made this incredibly difficult experience actually tolerable. They all care for both of us so much, and they show us every day.