Thoughts on a May day

Today a friend of mine is getting her new kidney and as I type the surgery should be wrapping up successfully. While sending out good thoughts for success today I started thinking back on that great day in my life. Seems like it was three lifetimes ago that I went into the hospital with no clue what was going to happen but being happier than I'd been at any previous time in my life.

My donor/best friend/savior/littlest jarhead both checked into the hospital the night before the operation. Either to make sure we didn't get ill or to keep tabs on Jeremy who was deathly afraid that for some reason he would wake up mid-operation. Having already been through more than a few surgeries at that point I found his fear naturally hilarious and open game for ridicule. What are friends for?

I really thought I'd be tossing and turning all night before the surgery. I knew, barring an emergency, we were at the top of the docket for the day and they would be coming to retrieve the two of us fairly early. I slept pretty soundly, unaided by chemistry. Now the day of my transplant is probably not the way transplant day goes for most. Because Jeremy was a Lieutenant in the United States Marine Corps and a, soon to be, two-time visitor to that paradise in the desert, Iraq there was apparently an angle that was newsworthy if not human interest-y. So at 0600 I woke up with a camera guy asking a nurse where he could stand and not be in the way. After being wheeled down to pre-op in side by side gurneys we were welcomed by said camera guy and both laid there trying not to acknowledge that we were being filmed. It was super awkward. Then an idea struck me. I'm kind of a jerk sometimes and I know how to get a laugh. To that end, it was now time to get what the nurses in every pre-op I've ever been in affectionately refer to as "the margarita". If my memory serves it's something similar to Ativan. It's what's called a "twilight drug" and its purpose is to chill you out right before they wheel you in and put the mask on your face for sleepy time. Jeremy, already nervous as all Hell for his very first surgical experience, was watching me to see how I was reacting as I was something of an old hand at that stuff. Never one to pass up a chance at a laugh, when the nurse pushed the margarita through my IV line I instantly dry heaved, feigning a bad reaction. I looked over at the giant saucer eyes on Jeremy and thought, even if this day goes down hill for me I'm going out with a laugh.

No more than 2 minutes later, after the same drug was administered to Jeremy flawlessly, an impromptu Cheech and Chong routine broke out. It's one of the funniest things I'll ever have been present for. But because the drug was so effective I barely remember any of it.

The surgery successful, I wake up in the ICU to another friend, and another never to pass up a punchline, Justin was at my bedside. The first words I heard after being reborn with this great gift were, "You have Jeremy's organ in you." Touche sir. Touche.

A day or so passes and I am in a regular room and feeling great. Not great for someone in my condition. Not "great considering". I felt better than I had felt on any day I had ever been alive. It was amazing. I was genuinely surprised at this. Jeremy was not exactly having the same transcendent experience I was. Because they removed his kidney laproscopically they had to expand his abdomen with nitrogen gas to be able to work around in there without opening him all the way up. Well that gas doesn't just magically go away. It stays in your gut and produces some of the worst pain. Being the friend I am I checked on him regularly, being up and mobile as I was. He was not a happy camper. I made fun of him.

He got the last laugh when he was released a good three days before I was. Overall I believe I was there for a week and it was the most pleased to be hospitalized I ever was or will ever be again. The television and print interviews before and after the surgery definitely made the experience a unique one, but as far as the surgery and recovery aspects of it all everything went according to plan. I couldn't have been happier.

Though five years on from that time the transplant went south and now no longer works and I'm back on dialysis Jeremy Duncan will always be my brother and hero for what he did for me that May day in 2004. I don't think about all this very much because though the memories are happy juxtaposed against my life today it doesn't lead to good places mentally. But today, with my friend Valarie being wheeled in, most likely high off her ass, and getting that most special of gifts I thought about fake dry heaving and smiled.