I had to take the First Mate in for outpatient surgery this morning as she has developed some complications with her kidney transplant. The details are pretty technical, but essentially what happened is that fluid began to build up around the kidney and at the same time, the doctors suspect that an obstruction may have formed inside the kidney. It isn't a rejection episode, as we originally feared, but she has to go back to having the kidney shunted to the outside, probably for the next six weeks. We're hoping that the shunt will take some of the pressure off the kidney and reverse some of the suppressed function we've been seeing in the lab results.

She's also fighting a CMV infection, which is not uncommon for transplant patients, especially in the first couple of months. That causes flu-like symptoms, exhaustion, and a lack of energy, and it takes a while to shake off. She's asleep now, of course, as she just had the surgery. I'm home watching her, so I'm out of the office again.

Thank you for those who keep asking about her progress. I wish I had better news for you. This isn't bad news -- it's actually fairly common, although we wish the FM could have avoided this. It's apparent that this transplant will probably have a number of complications in the first few months, and we will just have to be flexible enough to handle them. My bosses have been terrific and patient, but at some point, I may need to make new arrangements that will allow me to be home more during the day without shortchanging my office, which is what I feel I'm doing now.

One day at a time ...

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