Sunday 8:30pm
You may have heard by now Steve got out of the hospital yesterday. We had Blair's graduation party and Steve's bringing a new kidney home party. Thanks to all who help get ready for the party we couldn't have had it without all of you. All went well. Our bed felt so good. After 16 days uncomfortable sleeping, being woke up in the night to have vitals taken and noise it is so good to be home.

We will be going back on Tuesday for lab work to see where his levels are. This is going to be a weekly thing for a while. He has to be very careful for the first 3 months, using germ x and staying away from anyone who is sick.

It is so good to be home. Thank you everyone for all the work, cookies, cards, gifts, support and prayers and help with dialysis while going through all of this. We couldn't ask for better family and friends.

Love Steve, Christy and girls.

Friday 2:30pm
Not going home today. His prograft level in the blood today went from 2 to 6 which is good it is coming up. They want it up to 9 before they let him leave so they are adding another pill. She promised she will have him out to be home in time for the party at 5:00pm. Since the holiday on Monday she needs to have him stay and have labs done in the morning and then we will need to be back down Tuesday morning.

He can argue all he wants but he seems to be ok with that. Hey, they got him a kidney. He will be home to party but here are the rules. Doctors says everyone use germ X if anyone is not feeling well runny nose, cough, etc... stay on the other side of the room. Be very careful shaking hands and hugging. I am scared to take him anywhere, need to put him in a bubble for about 3 months. Party on!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Christy

May 26 4:00pm

I am back in KC today with Steve. Now he is playing the numbers game. His CB3 which is how stirred up the immune system is was at 8 today. It has to be below 10 and yesterday it was at 6. When you put a foreign organ in the body your immune system gets all crazy because it knows it is not yours and tries to reject it. This is why he has been receiving pretty much everyday a bag of Thymo goblin through his IV anti-rejection medicine. Yesterday they started him on the pill form of prograft anti-rejection meds. He has to have this in his blood and the level on this has to be between 10 and 12. Today it was only at 2 so they increased the morning dose to 3 pills verses 1. The CB3 needs to be below 10 and the level of anti-rejection needs to be between 10-12.

We went over the meds he will be coming home on and it is not 20 like we were first told. Looks like 12. 3 anti-rejection meds, 1 antibiotic, 1 medicine to kill fungus, 1 steroid, 1 to prevent infections, 2 blood pressure meds, 1 to make your tummy feel better because of all the above that you are taking etc... I knew a pharmacy degree would come in handy.

They started giving him lasisks again today he has had it twice and it works immediately. His ankles are still pretty fat. I am wondering if they will make him stay to get more fluid off before he goes home? He has to pee about every 15 minutes. He has lost approximately 9 lbs of fluid this process is pretty slow. His kidney is working at about 18% and I know that doesn't seem like much but eventually they say it will get about 60%. You and I don't even have a 100% of our kidneys working, this is what the docs say. They want what they want, first it was urine they wanted and that is what they got now it is quality urine they want which means the clearance or the creatinine level which today was 3.5. The nurse said she thinks it will get to 1.0 again.

He seems to be in pretty good humor. We will see what happens tomorrow when he gets the work go or stay. The nurse told him today he has not been here the longest. Your still in the same month. Other patients have been here 1 month or longer. One person had a transplant after 17 years of dialysis and was her for several weeks, 5 I think.

We have written our letter to the donors family thanking them for the gift of life. We have decide to keep this private but will let you know if they respond. So bittersweet! Please pray for the donors family.

Wednesday 10:00pm
As you no nothing was posted yesterday as I was on the road coming home for a banquet with Blair. I told Steve he needs to learn to post so when I am not able to he can. You know what he said. As I always say there is a good woman behind every man. Right ladies?

His creatinine and white count have gotten low enough that he was able to start on pill form of anit-rejection today. He went over his medications that he will be coming home on and will take for the next month. Wow! I we might have to get a pharmacy degree. He is really working on them hard to let him out by the weekend. He still has a lot of fluid on his ankles but they assure him it will take time and not to worry about it. The fluid will come off as his kidney is still not working at a 100%. Give it time they say, hurry up and wait. He is tired of those phrases.

He had a little excitment today. KU hospital was in tornado warnings for a while today and they told him he needed to go sit in the hall way. He went back and forth from his room today watching the weather and looking out of his window. Emily talked with him once today and he said they had to tell him more than once to get away from the window and shut the blinds. He has the binoculars there with him and can see quite far, as far as Royals Stadium/Arrowhead so I am sure he was weather watching when he got in trouble. I can't leave him for 1 day!

We would like to thank everyone for all the cookies, this was better than flowers any day. It has felt good to me just to sleep in my own bed. I can't wait for Steve to be able to do this. Tomorrow night will be 14 days he has been there and you can image how bad he is wanting to come home. I was home catching up on some things and had to rsvp a wedding we are planning on attending this summer. When they asked how many guest in your family I wanted to say 5, Blair, Blair's boyfriend Christy, Steve and Steve's new kidney. It is kind of like having new first. First time coming home with his kidney, first car ride, first shower (transplant patients are not allowed to shower while in the hospital), first party, etc.... It is a little scary too when you think about the things he will be doing.

We are so very greatful for this miracle, just can't believe it is finally happened.

Prayers to all Steve and Christy

We would like to thank everyone who sent chocolate chip cookies. We are still trying to judge the best cookie. This beats flowers any day.

Monday 10:00a.m
Doctor just left. They are talking about to start taking some of the staples out today but not all. His creatinine was 7 today. Getting more lasisks again today to get rid of more fluid. His white count is getting down to close where they want it to be to switch over to pill form of anti-rejection medicine. The white count has to be below 10,000 before he can do pill form. Doctor is starting to talk about when he is going home maybe Thursday or Friday.

Helicopter has been coming and going in the last 24hrs. They are bring people from Joplin to all Kansas City Hospitals.

Still kind of planning on having Blair's graduation party and Steve's kidney party on Saturday. Hope you can stop by.

Christy

Sunday 11:00am
Doctor was just in, creatinine was down to 9 today. His ankles are still swollen so they are backing him off of his fluid intake today and going to give some lasicks today to help get rid of some of the extra fluid. Kidney put out 2 liters yesterday which is very good but he had about a lot of extra in him. It didn't seem possible but he had around 30 pounds of fluid on him. He can handle more fluid since he is a bigger person but now it needs to gradually decrease. He is having trouble sleeping at night which they think it is due to the anti-rejection medicine so today they are going to give it during the day so hopefully with peeing all day and meds during day rather than at night he will be able to sleep better at night.

He may get his staples out Tuesday. She didn't give a definite day but sounds like the end of the week if things progress as they have been. I don't no if I will last that long. It's like having a tiger in a cage. LOL!

Christy

Saturday 7:45pm
Nothing much to tell so I did not post anything yesterday. He is still progressing and the kidney is picking up nicely. He was able to get the catheter out today. His goal according to the nurse was that he had to pee 1 time in 4 hours. He did 2 or 3 times. Pee never looked so good. His creatinine has come down to 12, it was all the way up to 18 at one time. Doctor said when it starts coming down it will probably drop fast. It has to be at 2 before he can go home. Right now the worst is the anti-rejection med and he will be glad to get that done. When he comes home it will all be pill form not through an IV. Doctor hasn't even said but we are hoping he gets out middle of next week but nothing has even been said.

If he gets out next week we are planning on having Blair's graduation party and a pee party on Saturday afternoon/evening.

Thanks to everyone who sent cards, cookies, prayers, etc...

Love Steve and Christy

Just an FYI Steve cannot have green plants or cut flowers something to with the fungus they have. He wanted to let everyone know that all chocolate chip cookies were welcome.

Christy

Thursday 4:00pm
No dialysis today. Creatinine stayed the same at 15. 1025cc of urine as of midnight last night which is good. He is getting another bag of anti-rejection right now which will last until 11:30pm. Didn't see the doctor until 12:00 noon today. She told him to start walking around more.

He says to tell all of you who were thinking of donating a kidney he is not out of the woods yet. He is starting to get a little more humor. He doesn't have a black eye either. I know some of you were concerned about his attitude and that I might cause him harm.

Doctor is not giving any definite time frame but with any luck maybe, just maybe if things run smooth he might be out of the hospital by next weekend. Wasn't much news to tell today which is good for a change.

Christy

2:30pm Wednesday

We are riding the roller coaster as I call it again and we are ridding up hill. Steve expected everything to turn around immediately. It is going to take time. He didn't put out as much urine yesterday as he did the day before and he really got upset. His creatinine was 18 and has come down to 15 and potassium was 6 and came down to 4.5. Mostly due to dialysis yesterday. They did a couple hours of slow dialysis which he didn't like because he thought he was done with that. He will probably have to do it again tomorrow.

The doctor came in this morning and talked to us for quite a while and she could tell he was upset and told him not to give up, she has not given up yet it is just going to take time. She called his kidney and injured kidney meaning that it was out of the body packed on ice and traveled for a long of hours before it was put in Steve. It is in shock and when this happens it takes it long to wake up. She said you see more of this type of situations in the coastal areas because people who live on the coast have to wait longer for organs. She said its not that they don't ever see his situation they do but not as often. It is still making urine and that is a good sign. She said this could take 10 to 15 days to work its self out.



Right now he is receiving another bag of the anti-rejection meds. Which sucks because it makes him itch terrible and also makes the blood pressure go up. His pressure is up a little anyway because of the extra fluid he has, but they don't want to take much fluid off right now so when the kidney does decide to work it knows it's job.

I hope this makes sense. It seems like we get a lot of information and trying to relay and sort it
out sometimes is confusing. So if this sounds confusing it probably is. A nurse told us a lady that received a kidney in same situation that Steve is in and she finally named her kidney and then it took right off. Any suggestions for a name?

Christy

After talking with the transplant coordinator today we confirmed what really happened with the call for Steve to receive a kidney. I had talked with our transplant coordinator last Wednesday afternoon about 2:30pm. The reason I had called was to make sure that Steve's last lab work had been faxed and received by them to show he was clear of the staph infection. She said she wanted to look over those test results before she reactivated him. At 6:30pm that same evening the on call coordinator called and I answered the phone. She told me that they had a kidney for Steve but she needed to talk with him. I am thinking did I hear her correctly. I told her he was outside and I would have to get him. She told me to take my time. I went out to the shed where Steve was working with my cell phone and said "it is KU, they want to talk to you" didn't tell him what they told me because I wanted to make sure I heard them correctly. She talked to Steve for about 15 minutes and said they would stay in contact with us through the night. We received another call around 9pm that we wouldn't need to come down until the next day. We waiting around the rest of the night (ever tried to sleep the night before a transplant) until we received another call at 9am on Thursday and they wanted us to go ahead and do our dialysis. We finished dialysis around 1pm and headed to Kansas City checking in by 4pm. We went to admissions to let them know that we were there and they said someone would be around in about 10 minutes to get us. There were 2 elderly couples sitting in admissions and had been there the biggest part of the day(4 to 5 hours) waiting for a room (felt bad for them). Patients had to be released before a room became available for them. Need less to say they were very unhappy people. One of the women looked at us and said "you have only been her 10 minutes and they are coming to get you and I have been waiting all day." Steve puffs up and looks at the woman and says, "I have been waiting 2 years,I am not trading with anybody," the woman never said another word. We were taken to our room and Steve was taken done to be prepped for surgery at 9pm and I left him at 10:15pm when they were taking him to the OR and the surgeon came out at 12:30a.m. to tell me he was done, everything went well, kidney pinked up right away when artery and vein was hooked up. He was in recovery for about 2 1/2 hours and then sent directly to his room.

I learned yesterday when talking to a gentleman in Radiology that he has worked hear at KU for 40 years. He was hear when the first transplant was done in 1969. Back then the patient was in the hospital for 1 month in isolation and now almost done as an out patient procedure, well not quite. The woman that received the first transplant has had her 40th anniversary. She has had her kidney for 40 years. Amazing! I hope Steve has his for 40 years! This is truly amazing and miraculous how this works and of course a lot of help from upstairs. We are so very fortunate and thankful.

Love the Schmitz's

7:00pm just got back from dialysis they removed 1 liter of fluid. His weight when he came in was approx. 240 and they are saying that he weighs 270 but we don't think so because physically you don't see much swelling. They did a slow treatment of dialysis to get his creatinine and potassium down. We will see how his numbers are in the morning. Kidney is working good still producing a little more each day. His blood pressure is slightly evaluated but they are not to worried because they say it is the excess fluid and the anti-rejection medicine through IV that he has to take everyday. Think seem to be improving each day.

Lots of Love Steve and Christy

10:30a.m Tuesday morning.

Steve's potassium is high and creatinine so the plan today is to do some dialysis. He does have on excess fluid due to the kidney is not yet working 100%. We will see what happens with this and go from there. Doing dialysis some say will help the kidney also. He has not had dialysis since last Thursday afternoon.

Monday night 9:45pm.

What a day. Didn't sleep but a couple hours last night because so worried that the transplant might be ending but after a long day and an ultra-sound and a radio-active dye test the results were wonderful. Kidney is getting good blood supply and now producing more urine.

It has been a wonderful miracle that is bitter sweet. Some one's tragedy is our miracle. God bless this person. I decided a long time ago to be an organ donor, more of us should really think about this and put it in writing and let your loved ones no your wishes. I didn't use to give organ donation a second thought, now after going through this I can't image not doing it for someone else.

I hope what I post from now on is boring. The roller coaster today was a scary one. Thank all of you for all the prayers, email, text, etc... I know this is what made this happen and turn out good.

Love to all!
Steve and Christy

Dr. just came in and the blood flow was good to the kidney. She is saying it just a slow kidney. So it is going to take a little longer to get it producing the amount of urine they want. We are so glad that this is working out. Now we will be seeing a different doctor, they have to rotate. Will let you no more later if we get anymore news today but so far it is good news.

Christy

Did altra-sound and they could not get a good picture of artery and vein. So now they are doing a 3 hour dye test to see if the kidney is getting blood supply. It did make a little more urine than yesterday but should be making around a liter by now. So we are going to do this and see what happens. If no blood supply kidney will have to come out. The surgeon said when the kidney came in it had 2 veins, they tied one off and hook the other one up he thinks the pictures they took this morning is the one that is tied off. More to come.

Christy

Steve has done the ultra-sound this morning. They could not get a good picture of the artery or vein. We are now waiting to see what the doctor says. Will let you know when we find something out.

Christy

Steve is receiving another bag of anit-rejection med as a precaution, 2nd bag he has received. This is powerful stuff and it makes him feel kind of crappy. Hot, cold and a little bit light headed. We are praying tonight that he gets a good report in the morning. This kidney has to work. Steve address at the hospital is
The University of Kansas Hospital
3901 Rainbow Boulevard
Kansas City, KS 66160

PRAY HARDER!!!!
Today we were told that the kidney is making less urnie than it was yesterday. Tomorrow they are going to do an ultrasound of the kidney to make sure the artery that supllies the kidney isn't blocked and if it is that is the end of the road for this transplant. This is not what we want. If the artery isn't blocked they will do a biopsy of the kidney to see if he is rejecting it and if he is then they will keep giving him the anti-rejection medication in hopes to turn it around. If the artery isn't blocked and he isn't rejecting it then we are still just waiting on the kidney to wake up. We are all trying to stay positive and keep dads spirits up. Keep sending the prayers and good thoughts coming.

Love
Emily

Our prayers were answered yesterday. Steve received a kidney. We got the news Wednesday night. It has been a long couple of days of waiting. We were at KU med center yesterday by 4pm to get admitted. The kidney didn't get here until 8:30pm last night. The OR was ready and waiting when the kidney arrived. Steve spent yesterday afternoon doing blood test, ekg and chest xrays.

It is bitter sweet that someone Else's tragedy is the answer to our prayers. God bless this person and there family. All we no for sure is that the kidney donor was in an accident with head trauma and the kidney came from South Carolina.

The surgery started around 10:30pm last night and the surgeon came out and talked with me at 12:30am. He was in recovery for 2 1/2 hours. Dr Nawabe said it went great fairly fast and the kidney pinked up right away which is a good sign. They did tell us that it may take a few days for it to work correctly. Before they consider it a working kidney it has to make 1 liter per day. Right now it is only making a few ounces. But they assure us it will wake up and start working.

His pain was more manageable this time than his 2 previous surgeries. He may have to do dialysis tomorrow or the next day to take off some fluid. They are still putting fluid in him through an IV because that is what the kidney likes. So he needs plenty of fluid in his body.

I have to tell a funny story that happen when we got here yesterday. We went to admission to let them no that he was here. The woman said they would be calling for him in a few minutes. There were 2 older couples sitting in admitting waiting to get a room. The one woman said to us you have only been her 10 minutes and we have been waiting all day. Steve speaks up and says to her "I have been waiting for 2 years" and the lady didn't say anymore.

Thank you and God Bless all of you that have prayed so hard for this to happen. It truly is a miracle how this works. When you receive the call it is so hard to believe and it has been so long. I will try to keep up each day with new information if there is new news.

Love Steve and Christy

God answered our prayers today. We received a call from KU about 6:30pm this evening and they want Steve to come down to KU they have a kidney. Don't know a lot of details to tell you but will I post something when I get a chance. Steve was actually the 2nd person they called. The first person had something go wrong and had to be passed up. Our thoughts and prayers are with this person whoever they may be. It is not 100% sure but will no by morning. The kidney is being flown in from another state. That is really all that we no.

Christy
Thank you for all the prayers it has truly made this happen.