42

In some ways, this post is a little bit tougher. And in other ways it's easier. The rest of the events with Bryce's kidney (excluding the post-transplant diabetes diagnosis) I wasn't there for. I hadn't met him, so while it's personal because I know it was my husbands history and his story, it was all second hand. This part is where it gets more real and in depth for me. I expect it will bring back emotions I haven't thought about or felt in a while. So, that said: here goes.

We went to Idaho for Christmas 2013 but with Owen only being 4 weeks old we hadn't planned to stay too long. The way it worked out with schedules for everyone we ended up doing the Transplant Party with Cooks the evening of December 27th at Bryce's parents. About the time the party started, Bryce started feeling queasy. He was sick thru the party- flulike symptoms, and then thru the night. We got home Friday evening and he rested and felt a little better and returned to work Monday and Tuesday. Tuesday was New Year's Eve and we had all had a little bit of a flu bug, so we put the kids to bed early and stayed up having a 'Downton Abbey' marathon and eating pizza. New Years Day we took it easy around here at home, Bryce still wasn't feeling real great. We watched some more 'Downton' and then went to bed, planning for Bryce to return to work Thursday January, 2nd.

At some point in the middle of the night I heard Bryce get up out of bed and fall back into the blinds on our bedroom wall. I asked if he was okay, He still had his CPAP mask on, so I couldn't hear what he was saying to me. He fell forward back into bed and was shivering. I put his blankets back on him and snuggled up to help him get warm, then he fell asleep. I assume he'd gotten up to go turn the thermostat up, or go to the bathroom and tripped over one of the cords over by his bed. And I thought the shivering was because he had the chills and a fever from the flu.

The next morning I got up with the kids, and I saw Bryce still in bed. I assumed he was up sick in the night and had called his boss, telling him he wouldn't be coming in. We came downstairs and did our usual morning routine with the kids. 

At 10:40AM my phone rang, it was Bryce's office. 

"Hi, Lissa this is Louise from Bryce's work. Matt just wondered if he was coming in today? He hadn't heard from him yet."

"Oh, I'm sorry. I know he was up sick in the night and I just assumed that he had called you. I'll go talk to him and have him give you or Matt a call."

I looked at my phone as I walked up the stairs, it said 10:42. I was holding new baby Owen and brought him with me. I walked into our room and over to Bryce's side of the bed. 

"Bryce...Bryce...Bryce!" I reached out and touched his shoulder, shaking him just a little. He is a pretty deep sleeper and is hard to wake sometimes. He opened his eyes and closed them again. I tried again. 

"Bryce!" I shook him, he opened his eyes and made eye contact with me for a split second. I told him to wake up. He tried to say something but with his CPAP mask on and the slurred way he was speaking I couldn't tell what he was saying. He closed his eyes again. 

I grabbed him "Bryce! You are really scaring me! If you don't wake up and start talking to me I'm going to call 911!" He closed his eyes. (This was the most terrifying moment of my whole life! I thought he'd had a stroke. And as we established when I was having Jane in the car, he is far too cheap to ever pay for an ambulance. I knew something was up if he was letting me call one.)

I grabbed my phone and dialed 911, got a dispatcher. She asked me questions about Bryce's medical history and his symptoms, asked how he was doing and stayed on the phone with me until the paramedics got here. They were followed closely in a few minutes by the Fire Dept. He was about as responsive to them as he had been to me. They pricked his finger and tested his blood sugar. 

It was 42. 

For Bryce just waking up it should be about 115. They got his CPAP off and an IV in his arm to give him some sugars. He pulled the needle out the first time and we got blood all over the sheets, but the second time they got it taped down and then gave him some stuff in his IV that helped him come to.

He started to slowly come around after they'd been talking to him for about 15 minutes. He didn't remember me trying to wake him up, or falling in the middle of the night. The first thing he remembers is laying in bed and looking up and being surrounded by paramedics and EMT's and me standing there with Owen. They said they thought it was a diabetic coma which happened as a result of when he got the flu, he didn't have an appetite so he wasn't eating much of anything. But he kept taking his pill to keep his blood sugar low, not really thinking about it. Those two things made his blood sugar drop dangerously low.

The EMT's said he was stable and doing okay now so they didn't need to take him to the hospital, but he did need to get in to see his doctor in the next couple days. We called Dr. Senekjian but got his voicemail saying he was out of the country on vacation. Luckily we were able to get ahold of the partner in his practice, who we have worked with from time to time and knows the medical history, Dr. Agarwal. He said Dr. Senekjian would be back in town the beginning of next week and could see Bryce then. In the meantime we were supposed to get in for a full blood panel and stop taking the medication that keeps his blood sugar down. Bryce went in for blood work the following day, but we wouldn't get the results for a few days.

The next couple days were emotionally hard. Bryce had serious anxiety about sleeping- he was afraid every time he fell asleep he wouldn't wake up. I had the same fears, it was terrifying. We got small bottles of juice, kept them by his bed and set an alarm for in the middle of the night and he would wake up and drink them to keep his blood sugar up. When I got up in the mornings I would wake him up, just to make sure he was okay. We were checking his sugars a lot, afraid of them getting too low. He was able to get a prescription for some Ambien which helped him sleep. I didn't sleep much, although I'm not sure how much of that I can attribute to Bryce and how much of it was having a 6-week-old baby.😳

I can't even let myself think about what if he hadn't been wearing his CPAP mask, which kept his oxygen up. 

Or what if his boss hadn't called? He said he almost didn't. 

Or what if the EMT's hadn't been able to get him to wake up.

Or if this hadn't happened when it did. We had a road trip to Missouri planned just a couple weeks later. What if we had been in a hotel somewhere in the middle of Wyoming?

It's all too scary for me to think about.

The Lord is in the details, we have seen just as many tender mercies in the hard times as we have in the good. We have truly been watched over and cared for, even when we didn't know we needed to be.

Thank You, Prograf

I guess I have been a little unsure of what to post about next.

The next several years passed rather uneventfully health wise for Bryce. He had a kidney infection Memorial Day 2007 driving back from Idaho and spent a couple days in the hospital in Brigham City. Regular blood tests are part of his post-transplant life now, so that helped keep him healthy and be able to catch problems early.

I remember on our first date he mentioned something in passing conversation about "When I had my kidney transplant..." I didn't think much of it at the time, and I don't really remember talking about it more, although I know we did. I saw the dozens of prescription bottles on his bathroom counter when we were dating so I knew enough about it by the time we got serious because I mentioned it to my Dad when I had my conversation with him telling him Bryce and I had decided we wanted to get married. He told me that taking on that kind of health issue could be taxing, so to make sure I knew what I was signing on for. I didn't think much of it: I was in love and had found the man I wanted to spend eternity with. His health was good at the time and since I wasn't around for the transplant I didn't have any first hand experience with what it meant when his health wasn't good.

The first few years we were married his kidney did great. No major sicknesses and no hospitalizations. There were several instances of gout which would get him down for a few days, but his prescription for that helped and he always bounced back.

We celebrated the anniversary of the transplant with the Cook's each December with a party.

In 2010 we moved to Wichita. When he had regular blood tests at our local hospital there they would send his results to Dr. Senekjian, allowing us to keep him as Bryce's nephrologist and work with him for prescription changes and what not.

The beginning of 2012 Bryce's regular blood work showed that his sugars were high. Dr, Senekjian suggested getting a local doctor in Wichita Bryce could go see for new issues that might arise and help him handle, since he was too far away for an in person appointment. We got a referral to see an internist, Dr. Tatpatti who ran further blood work. He diagnosed Bryce with post-transplant diabetes. One of the potential side-affects of an anti-rejection medicine Bryce was on, Prograf, was that over a long period of time it can cause your body to stop producing insulin, causing diabetes. Obviously you can't quit taking the anti-rejection medication! So we changed Bryce's diet pretty drastically to see if that would make a difference.

It didn't.

Dr. Tatpatti put Bryce on a prescription to keep his blood sugar regulated. That seemed to do the trick. After a few months of it being pretty steady we quit monitoring it so much and things were fine.

The Summer of 2012 we moved back to Utah so we were able to go back to Dr. Senekjian as Bryce's Primary Care physician. It felt good to be back with a doctor who knew the whole history and was so easy to work with.

Transplant Pictures

Found a few of these gems of Bryce and LaWrell in the hospital post-transplant. It was so long ago, it's kind of interesting to me to see these. And because this was pre-digital camera I haven't seen many.

Bryce and Mom walking the halls- Duke and Moff in the background

JoDee and LaWrell- thanks guys!

Resting in those luxurious hospital beds

Pain management!

"My Brain Is Crap!"

The transplant went smoothly. Bryce had no major complications and healed well. His memory of the 6-8 weeks post-transplant are quite fuzzy, so a lot of this will be sourced from his Mom and Moff. He did push the doctors to let him out a bit earlier than they normally do. His brother Brad's wedding was December 28th in Logan and he didn't want to miss it. He had gotten approval from the nurses to go to that ahead of time.

The Sunday before the wedding, they had an incident at the hospital. His nurse noticed his blood pressure was a little high, so she wanted to give him some blood pressure medicine thru his IV to bring it down. Bryce told her it's usually a little bit high, so not to be too worried, but she gave him the medicine anyway. It spiked again and at this point he started to get a bit of a headache. Bryce told her she should maybe check with the doctor before she gave him more. She didn't, and decided to give him more an hour or so later. It spiked even higher, giving him a massive migraine and causing him to throw up (keep in mind he'd had MAJOR surgery in his abdomen just days before. Dozens of stitches several layers deep in his stomach.) Naturally, this caused his BP to go even HIGHER (vomiting and pain will do that!) The nurse wanted to give him MORE! At this point Bryce insisted "Do not give me any more until you check with the doctor." She left and never came back. Bryce didn't see her again the rest of his stay. (Not sure what happened to her but this taught us to be your own advocate at the hospital! Speak up and be vocal about what you want and need! And if you feel strongly enough about it, talk to whoever you need to until you get what you need!) This all caused his numbers to go up and set him back a few days going home. 

His numbers never have come back down to where they were right after surgery.

The day of the wedding, he went to Logan to the sealing but by the end he was exhausted. He remembers getting in the car with his Mom and after that he doesn't remember much. She drove him back to the hospital in Salt Lake (LDS Hospital) where he stayed another 2-3 days.

The first week-10 days after he got released he had to stay in Salt Lake for close proximity in case of problems. Moff being just minutes from the hospital he stayed with her. She was amazing- she gave up her bed to him for a week, made him breakfast in bed and nursed and pampered and took excellent care of him. He still had a catheter in at this time, since they don't want the bladder to get too full and back up into the kidney, potentially causing infections and complications. He had to go back to the hospital every 3 days to get an intravenous electrolyte treatment for his kidney. It took about two hours each time and they would draw blood at the end to analyze the kidneys performance. 

After a week resting up at Moff's he went back to Clifton to rest and recover some more. After about a week there, he had to get back to Rexburg and finish his last semester at BYU-Idaho. He spent a lot of time sleeping alone in his room, his hair was falling out left and right (a possible side affect of his medications and/or a traumatic event such as an organ transplant!) and he missed a lot of class. He was supposed to stay away from people; his immune system was low because of the anti-rejection meds he was on, so he didn't go to church much either.

About mid-February he said he started feeling better. He was able to go to more classes, be a bit more social and not sleep as much, and start being more active by participating in more intramural sports events. Bryce said his professors were really awesome and willing to work with him, giving him extra time to complete and make up assignments. It was his lowest semester GPA-wise but he still took 17 credits and kept good grades.

He walked at graduation in May, all his family there to celebrate the victory. He did it! He made it through college AND an organ transplant! Now onto regular life!