Good morning everyone, today is Monday post-op day 4. It has been a roller coaster ride, exactly what they said it would be. One day is good, the next day is bad, and that is how it has been. Yesterday it started out good, but by mid-morning it was horrible. Bridgette has stopped eating and has a rash all over her body. They want Bridge to drink a minimum of 2L and she can't even get anything in. She has 8 extra pounds of fluid on her body which means she is very bloated, especially in her right leg. They thought possibly since it came on so fast that she has a clot in that leg, so at 9:45 at night we are down getting an ultrasound on her leg. She is tired, in pain, swollen everywhere, has a full body rash has an epidural still in her back, triple lumen catheter in her left jugular, dual lumen dialysis catheter in her right jugular, a foley catheter, emptying her bladder and sequential stockings on both legs to help pump the blood up and down so she doesn't develop a clot. It is crazy. The nursing staff during the day has been great, but at night they are all new. Residents, which I'm sure are smart, but really have no common sense, are driving us crazy. There are new residents seeing us 6x a day, from the surgical team, the nephrology team, the pain team, etc.(thank god for the good nursing staffing). Don't get us wrong it is a wonderful hospital but it seems that nobody talks with the other teams. You really have to be a big advocate for the patient. Today they have listened, and improvements have been made. Bridge has been up x3 around the nurse's station today which is a huge accomplishment, the next big thing is you guessed it, she had a BM today, everybody is so "happy". The kidney unfortunately is still asleep. They tell us it is called ATN(Acute tuberal necrosis). They are saying that even though this sounds scary and that part of the kidney has died, that it will just take longer to kick in but should be come back. I asked what the % of people who get this and they said 50%. Then I asked is that with living donor or deceased and they said mainly deceased, so hopefully it will work in our favor. The renal #'s are coming down but very slowly, but they state that they are coming down which is a positive sign, just not as fast as they would like it to have come down though. They also stated that 50% of transplants have some type of rejection in the first year so not to be alarmed. If this happens then we have to come back to the hospital for 3-4 days for iv steroid therapy. The medications regimen we choose for Bridge is very scary, but when we asked the doctors what drug regimen they would choose out of the 3 they stated this one. 2 of the medications that Bridge gets are used also in cancer patients. They are toxic, so we have to wear gloves to give them. The # 1 side effect is skin cancer,(what???) The other medications that Bridge has to take now induces, high cholesterol, high blood pressure and heart disease, so she has to take medication to offset that. We just have to pray that we made the right choice for her. Everyday they throw new information at us so not to overwhelm us, but I think they succeeded. Just want to give a shout out to Kimmy for such a great dinner, thank you Michelle and Dave for dropping it off. Thank you to the girls at the Clinic for the balloons and activities for Miss Bridge, she loves them. They were a huge hit! Thank you to everyone really for all the prayers and support, we couldn't do it without everyone of you.XXXXXXOOOOOOOOO