Day 2: 2 days after surgery

I'm sitting up in bed. It's a sunny afternoon with clouds scatttered through the sky. I have a strange back view of the hospital - not the prettiest of hospitals. It is a gray, concrete prison-like structure, with dirty blue and yellow bars that are supposed to be balconies. I can't imagine anyone hanging around outside, as the windows don't open.

The surgery: it lasted 5 hours. According to the nurses, the surgery could have taken 1 & 1/2 -3 hours, but after they connected the kidney, it turned an unhealthy gray. It was then removed, they took out a blood clot that the kidney had formed upon removal, and then put it back in again. This time, it was pink and healthy. Only then did they connect it and close me, thank goodness.

I woke up in a special room - a post-op theatre, maximum 5 patients. I knew it was a big surgery when I woke. I had so many tubes and catheters. A needle in my hand for the infusion. A needle/tube in my neck. A catheter in my abdomen that is a blood drain to a murky bloody bag. Another bag that is a drain for the urine; it's connected to a urinary catheter.

It was strange being so aware of the hugeness of the operation. Of course I was on Morphine, and time floated by so that the 14 hours I was in there seem like nothing at all, but I still find it strange that I was awake enough at some point to ask for a magazine. I remember reading some of one; it was difficult to hold the magazine, but I even recall some of the content; it was about breast cancer and it made me think of another woman I know who is writing a blog about breast cancer in her 20s.

I have to take masses of anti rejection drugs that are pumped in to my i.v. in my hand. I had an infusion of liquids going in to my neck; those tubes were taken out today and I feel more human.

I've had loads of visits from my mum and my boyfriend. They brought in some sweet tee shirts and a new dressing gown so I feel pretty again.

I'm super glad it's all going well and hope for it to continue. My donor is doing well. I can't see him much as he's down the hall and I can't walk there yet. He's come to visit a couple of times even though it hurts him somewhat..what a guy.