The kidney removal surgery went better than planned but my husband did wake up with 3 one inch incisions on his right side and about a 6 inch one going directly down his abdomen starting above the belly button. This was the first abdominal surgery that my husband has ever had. At this point I have had let us see… the first was an abdominal entry to replace a disc in my back, the second was appendix removal, gallbladder removal and then the TRAM flap reconstruction so I have had 4 abdominal surgeries so far. Hopefully it will not go any higher.
For his surgery he was supposed to get up and start walking the next day with the nurses’ help and he did not. Now who made the decision not to get up and walk is debated he says that the nurse never asked him to but I am sure they did and he complained about his pain so they did not push it; but that is just between us.
I was able to get him up and about on day 3 post surgery because I told him that if he did not get up and walk that there was no way he was going to get to come home. He did get up and he only had assistance the first time after that he did it all on his own. He kept commenting on how now he knows how tough I really am because when I had the same incision for my back surgery I was up and walking the same afternoon. Another truth between you and me it was because I refused to use a bed pan so I had to walk to the bathroom.
Well before surgery the surgeon said about a 4 day hospital stay and he even said that post surgery but we had a complication. See his other kidney was working good before surgery but now all of a sudden it is not filtering the waste like it is supposed to and when the doctors ran his CBC blood test it showed that he had elevated creatine levels and they were not sure why. Elevated creatine is not a good thing it could indicate kidney failure and with only one kidney left that would have meant dialysis. That night after the doctor told us that they would not be releasing him I went home and did my normal internet searches for creatine and what it meant. Hey if this was going to keep him in the hospital longer I knew it was serious or the insurance company would not have approved it.