Today’s Terrific Tuesday post is again going to be a bit different this week.

It’s now been exactly a week since the kidney transplant….. and all is well!

John was discharged on Saturday and is recovering well at home. Pieter remains in hospital* until his blood pressure and one of his levels normalises. It’s nothing too serious, as 99% of what his new kidney has to do, it is doing. Little Johnny (as the transplanted kidney is now known) is doing a great job.

John had a really tough time with post operative nausea but thankfully it is getting daily. He is eating more each day and taking fewer anti-sickness meds. I should know, I’m keeping a chart. As you do.

The feel-good photo for today was taken on 28 November 2012, the day after the operation. As soon as John was taken off the morphine drip, he wanted to go and see his good friend Pieter.

A picture really is worth a thousand words.

*Since writing this post we’ve been told that Pieter will be discharged today!

Today’s Terrific Tuesday post is going to be a bit different.

My dear, amazing husband, John, donated his kidney to a friend today.

I’m going to give you a minute to let that sentence sink in.

Sunk?

Okay, let me explain. Well, actually I don’t need to explain. John and Pieter started a blog shortly after John said he would like to give Pieter one of his kidneys. The blog is called twoguysonekidney.blogspot.com. It tells the whole story, from how they met (on 18 June 2012) & why John decided to donate his kidney here, how it came about that Pieter was in need of a second kidney donation here, the tests they had to undergo, all the good test results, and other events up to yesterday on the home page.

It’s been a very long, but very,very, very happy day for us all. Both men are doing well! Pieter’s surgeon’s words were “It went swimmingly. Beautiful kidney and a perfect operation” and John’s surgeon said “John’s operation went well. He is very complex on the inside.” That’s so true of John figuratively speaking, and now we know literally as well.  They were both passing urine within hours of their operations, which in kidney transplant terms is the best possible news.

We were also told this evening that John is the first person in the UK to do a “directed altruistic organ donation”. Until today if you donated an organ altruistically, you weren’t allowed to know (choose) who the organ would go to, but John and Pieter changed all of that today! When John heard, he smiled a sleepy smile and immediately said he hopes this would pave the way for more people to donate an organ to someone in need 🙂

A Terrific Tuesday indeed!