Brunella’s Blog

Ron, my sister Luana,her husband Virginio and daughter Alex during a celebratory dinner at their house on Nov 29th

Hello everybody!

I must apologize with all of you for not writing anything for a month.  I’ll try to explain why but it may be a bit difficult to follow my thoughts.  Please bear with me.

When I last wrote, I was still in the hospital in Italy and I wasn’t in a good place mentally.  I so much wanted to go home and I felt good enough.  However, the following day, Tuesday, I was very sick.  The nurses put me back on oxygen, I developed a back cough and had no energy.  The fluid in my lungs was finally catching up with me.  I got so bad that the doctors feared embolism had developed.  I went through some more tests, some unpleasant ones as well, and more antibiotics.  Wednesday I felt better but for my blood pressure which skyrocketed to 190/100.  Finally, Thursday evening they let me go.  The first thing I did was to scream from the top of my lungs in the hospital elevator (I scared my niece Alex who had come to pick me up and who probably thought I had gone totally nuts); the second thing I did was to walk to the building where my nephew was to see him for the first time since before the surgery.  I must admit that it was a very moving moment.  As soon as I walked into the ward, I saw him in the hallway where he was talking with other patients.  It was like in the movies: we walked towards each other then we hugged really tight and we both cried for a few minutes.  I think everybody around us also cried a bit.

Luana, Virginio, Alex, my mother, Barbara, Rossano and Ron at the same dinner

So let’s talk about Rossano.  He is doing really well.  He was released from the hospital on November 24th.  All of his control values are in the normal range.  He is still taking many different medications every day, but they are slowly reducing the dosage of at least some of them.  He has to wear a mask at all times andshould not be in a place withmore than 4-5 people for the next few months because his immune system is artificially compromised to avoid the rejection of the kidney.  He still goes to the hospital 2 times a week for tests.  Soon that will become once a week, then once every 10 days, twice a month, once a month, and finally once a year.  Everything is going really well and the doctors are confident in the long term success of the transplant.  Soon, Rossano will be able to start working again and in 4-5 months his life should be back to normal.

Ron, my sister Luana andI flew back to Grand Junction on December 2nd.  Luana felt she needed to keep an eye on me to make sure I wouldn’t overdo.  She is flying back to Italy this coming Sunday, December 21st.  Luana is my best friend and it’s wonderful to have been with her for such a long time. It hadn’t happened in so many years.  She also needs a break after so many years of worrying about Rossano and especially after the stress of the recent couple of months.

These are the facts, now let me try to explain why I didn’t write for a while.

The "plumbing job" on my hand at the hospital

The surgery wasn’t a piece of cake physically, but what I wasn’t prepared for was the mental part.  Once the physical discomfor started to subside, it became hard to deal with the fact that I entered the hospital healthy and all of a sudden I was sick.  I know it’s an obvious consequence of the surgery, but mentally I wasn’t prepared.  I didn’t know how to deal with it because I didn’t want people to think I regretted what I had done as it was never the case.  And I didn’t want to whine because there were so many people around me who were very sick.  I was lucky because I had entered the hospital healthy andI knew I was going to be healthy again soon, while other people I got to know in the ward were not going to be healthy again.  My roommate’s story is a case in point.  I’ll tell you her story later.  I was later told that is it not uncommon to suffer from some sort of depression after a major surgery.  I think that is what happened to me:  I was elated that my nephew was doing well andthat the 20-month ordeal to prepare for the surgery (weight loss) was over, but somehow the fact that my body was not bouncing back as I expected really dragged me down.  I thought I was going to be back in the gym a couple of days after being released from the hospital!  I know now that it was absurd to think that, but I really didn’t think that it would take this long to heal and to get my energy back.  Call it being naive, call it being dumb, I don’t know.  So, when I was back at home, I felt I needed to spend some time healing my body and my mind.  I didn’t want to think about work because I was afraid I could not handle any problems that they may have at the Bistro.  I didn’t talk to anybody at the Bistro for two weeks, delegating that to Ron and fearing every time that actions on my part were needed.  I didn’t want to look at emails for the same reason.  I laid down a lot, read a lot, and tried to enjoy  the time I had left with my family.  I didn’t write entries in the blog because I was still analyzing my feelings and because I didn’t want to think about Grand Junction and my life here.  I know it was selfish, and maybe a tad immature, but I’m being really honest here.  I hope all of you that have been disappointed in not being able to read any more will forgive me.  I do appreciate all of the comments and the good thoughts that travelled all the way to Italy.  It makes me feel very fortunate to have had so may people interested in our ordeal.

Tomorrow, I will post my roommate’s story, someone else who needs lots of good thoughts and prayers, and someone who touched me.  For now, I’m going to add a few more pictures from my Italian story.

Rossano, still at the hospital

Hello everybody.  Thank you all for the prayers and good thoughts you sent our way.  They certainly helped!

So here are some details:

Thursday morning at 8:30 my time (12:30 am Colorado time) they started my surgery which ended at 12 noon.  At about noon they started my nephew’s surgery which ended at about 2 pm.  I was awakened at 1 pm and brought back to my room at 2:15, when Ron called Lori.  At about 4 pm Rossano was brought to his room which is located in another building of the hospital.  We were told that his kidney had started urinating within 10 minutes from being transplanted and that its was working very well.

He was in isolation until last night when his parents and his wife were finally able to see him for a reasonable amount of time. Until then, his wife had been able to see him for 10 minutes, from a distance and completely covered in sterile clothing.  He has to wear a mask, and will have to for a long time, but now he can walk a bit and meet them in the hallway for a while.  His building is VERY old and yet to be renovated.  His room is small, gloomy, and very depressing. He got depressed on Saturday and sounded very down on the phone (we talk every day).  Yesterday and today, he seems to be doing better.  His control values are going back towards a normal range and the doctors are very optimistic.  They say every day, every hour that passes, the risks diminish considerably.  I hope he’ll be home in another 7-8 days, but the worst is hopefully over.

As far as I am concerned, my kidney went into a bit of a shock (probably feeling a bit lonely) and wasn’t working very well for the first 18 hours or so.  Meanwhile they were pumping me full of fluids (I kid you not, maybe 40 ivs in 3 days) and by Friday night I was looking more like the Michelin man.  I needed oxygen Thursday and Friday nights because my breathing was way too shallow.  Saturday morning, the nurses needed to get another 3 vials of blood for yet more testing.  After 3 nurses and eight pokings, they were finally able to draw some blood from my feet!  I had a complicated plumbing project on my right hand to allow for, at times, 5 different ivs (including, thankfully, my morphine pump which I named Morphy).  They removed the urine catheterSaturday morning, and, later that day, the drainage tube they had placed where my kidney used to be (that wasn’t fun, but at least it was quick!).  Free from at least some of the tubes, I was able to get up and move around a bit.  They took mercy on me and decided to feed me some tea and broth as well.  After fasting since the previous Wednesday, that felt really good!  I was also able to shed the surgical gown and finally wash up and wear pjs again.  With Ron and my iv tree, we made the round of the ward 5 times (and Morphy of course).  My control values, which jumped up as expected after the surgery, are also coming down into the normal range again.  I’m just a bit anemic, but the number of iv has gone down to 3 a day thankfully.  They removed the plumbing project form my right hand yesterday, and Morphy last night (Sunday).  I thought I was going to miss Morphy (after all my belly looks like a battleground with 5 incisions), but today I really didn’t need painkillers.  The pain was a bit more noticeable but not unbereable, which is great news.

However, today I feel a bit down.  This morning I asked the surgeon to let me go home, and, after looking at the chart, they decided I could go home tomorrow morning with the appropriate therapies post surgery.  I was sooooo excited.  I thought that tomorrow was the actual end of this saga that started January 2007 and I was elated.  I must confess that this surgery wasn’t a walk in the park (not that I ever thought it would be, but ultimately I think it’s worse than I expected), and that, even though every body is SUPER in this ward, from the cleaning ladies to the top surgeons, I can’t stand being here longer.  Nights are long agonies and I dream of sleeping in a comfortable bed for 8 uninterrupted hours!

Well, this afternoon came the blow: I have fluids in my lungs, mostly the left one!  They took exrays on Saturday and monitored my oxygen level.  Apparently, 90% of kidney donors exerience some sort of fluids in the lungs after the surgery, but in my case, the amount is way higher then normal, plus my oxygen saturation level is dropping.  They explained to me that, in removing the left kidney, they had to work very close to the left lung, and maybe something happened to cause drainage into it.  They called a lung specialist in and after his consult they decided that tomorrow, instead of sending me home, they will suck the liquid out and analyze it.  If it is part of the large amount of liquids they pumped into my body after the surgery, no big problem.  The doctors, however, seem to believe that I have an infection (and I tend to agree based on how I feel) and so that means more therapy and more days in the hospital.  It’s now 7 days, but it could easily become 10 or so.  We’ll know better tomorrow, but I must admit I didn’t take it well.  I knew something was up, but I thought it was more due to spending a large amount of time laying down, the massive amount of medications, etc, etc.

Poor Ron had to put up with my crying on and off for most of the afternoon.  When I am surrounded by sick people, it makes me ashamed that I am so upset that I have to be here another few days, but I couldn’t help it.  I think that the biggest shock for me was to go from being very healthy to, all of a sudden, being in pain and sick.  Oh well, I’ll get over it!

Throughout all of this, Ron has been wonderful.  He comes every day around noon, when they allow visitors, and stays with me until 7-8 at night, when my sister and her husband come to visit Rossano.  Since I abandoned Morphy, I’m a bit more talkative, but the first 3 days I was falling asleep all the time so it must have been pretty boring for him!

My sister Luana is a riot.  She comes early every morning, when they allow visitors for a brief time, to help me wash up and change.  Yesterday afternoon, she also came with my other sister, Diana, and my mother. They washed my hair in the bathroom sink and Luana did a full styling with her hair dryer plugged between ivs, oxygen setups, blood pressure pumps etc. We had a good time and lots of good laughs.

Here are some pictures from the past few days - PLEASE KEEP IN MIND THAT I WAS PUMPED FULL OF LIQUIDS AND DRUGS AND I LOOK HORRIBLE IN THESE PICTURES!

The day of the surgery...or the day after, take your pick!

I know many of you are anxiously waiting for an update regarding Brunella and Rossano’s surgeries which took place very early this morning (our time).  As you can tell by my title both were very successful!  Ron called me when Brunella was out of recovery and I actually got to speak to her!  She sounded groggy and her voice was raspy (from the ventillator tube during surgery). I told her it sounded sexy and matched her “new” figure!  The voices in the background sounded excited yet  a bit apprehensive as Rossano was still in surgery.  About an hour later Ron called again to report “the miracle has happened”, his kidney was functioning as hoped for.  Ron was starting to sound very tired and still had many hours to go before he was going to be able to get some sleep.

I know I speak for both of them when I say your continued support and prayers mean the world to them and their family.

I will leave the details to Brunella now.  We can only hope she doesn’t keep us waiting too long!

Oh happy day!!!

Lori Smith (Friend 1st and Admin Mgr @ the Bistro 2nd)

So, here I am in the hospital. This morning, I’ve been admitted to the surgical and organ transplant ward of the Ospedale Maggiore in Parma, Italy. I cannot say I’m happy to be in a hospital, but I can say that I’m happy this is finally happening, if it makes any sense. For so many months, I visualized every day this time that now it seems unreal it’s actually happening. I’m not sure this is very clear, but it’s hard to express my feelings, which are a bit mixed up. I’m starting to get nervous about the actual surgery (who wouldn’t, after all it’s a major surgical procedure!), but I’m elated at the same time; I’m annoyed at the idea of spending a week in a hospital, yet I’m glad this is finally happening; I can’t wait for this to be over, and at the same time I’m very curious about the whole process. Go figure!

Considering that the surgery is scheduled for the 13^th, I’m glad I’m not too superstitious! My bed is right next to a very large window and I like that very much. We also have a glass door that goes onto a covered balcony that runs the length of the side of the building, but it’s looked unfortunately; no doubt the key forever lost in the meanders of this hospital’s bureaucracy.

Here I am in my bright PJS!

The corridor outside my roomThe view from the hospital window in the waiting room

Not much going on today besides routine tests in preparation for the surgery. Tests that, I’d like to point out, were made a couple of weeks ago, when I first started this process…oh well, I guess I have nothing else to do here.

Luana and Rossano at the courthouse

Two days ago, my husband Ron arrived from the US. While I think he’s happy to be here, and I am sure happy he’s here, he’s also being thrown into a whirlwind of activity that, combined with his limited comprehension of Italian and the labyrinth this hospital is, are producing a lot of stress and many puzzled looks on his face. I must say that Ron has been absolutely fantastic through this all process that has lasted almost 20 months. He’s been my biggest supporter and my rock during the many times my spirit was low. In spite of his being a pain sometimes (just kidding!), he is a wonderful man and husband.

Ron in downtown ParmaRon in Piazza GaribaldiI had to include a food picture! This is a booth at the open market in Parma.

A display of many different nuts

First of all, thank you all for your comments, I really appreciate them.

Today I didn’t have to go to the hospital so I went to the gym with my nice Alessandra, Rossano’s sister. Afterwards, my sister Luana and I went to Reggio Emilia, the capital of my province, for some grocery shopping. I try to spend as much time as possible with my sister because she is sooooo tense and prone to depression that I think she needs as much company as possible.

Last week, coming back from the hospital in Parma, we stopped at a street fair called San Simone.  It’s probably the most famous street fair in this area in the fall and it occurs in the neighbouring town of Montecchio.  For 3 days the center of the town is occupied by a carnival and hundreds of vendors of all sorts.  From handbags to pajamas, to shoes, to toys, you can find just about everything at this market.  Of course, my main focus was food.  To see all the traditional (and sometimes not so traditional) vendors was like a homecoming for me.  I used to love to go to San Simone and part of the excitement was to eat some of the street food.  This is the first time in 13 years that I am in Italy during San Simone, and it was a lot of fun to walk along the crowed streets and look at all the different foods displayed.  I was good though and didn’t eat anything, but I did take pictures, some of which I am including with this post.

One of the most traditional foods to eat at this time of the year are chestnuts.  You can buy them from street vendors that roast them on the spot.  The aroma of roasting chestnuts is wonderful and it’s the best part of fall for me.  When I was a kid, buying a few chestnuts was the real treat of the fair.  The place them in a paper cone, warm and fragrant, and you can’t help peeling them as you walk and popping them in your mount one after the other, fingers black from the charred skin.  I decided that I will treat myself to a few chestnuts after the surgery.  I don’t dare do it now because chestnuts have lots of calories, but I must have some chestnuts before I travel back to the States!

Hello again -

First of all, thank you Susan, Ellen, Jim, Marsha and Mark for your comments.  It’s nice to know so many people keep us in their thoughts and prayers and I firmly believe that it helps.

Today I went back to the hospital in Parma and talked to the surgeon.  The transplant is scheduled for next Thursday, November 13th.  FINALLY!.  This is the beginning of the end of a long journey for my family and I can’t wait.  My nephew and I will go see a magistrate on Tuesday morning and then I’ll be admitted to the hospital.  I expect to be released the following Monday or Tuesday.  The magistrate part is part of the Italian bureaucracy: he interviews us to make sure I am not being coerced or paid to give my kidney to Rossano, my nephew.  Rossano will be admitted on Monday morning so that he can have haemodyalisis for three days before the transplant.  Since June of 2007, he’s been on a different kind of dialysis that is less effective but that he can do at home; every night for 9 hours, he’s been attached to this machine.  Needless to say, his life has been greatly affected by this routine, but at least he didn’t have to go to the hospital every other day. It’s my understanding that this type of dialysis also allowed him to preserve his urinary functions, making the transplant more likely to succeed.  The surgeon explained to me that they see the first urine 5 minutes after the kidney is attached and by the following day, all the blood values are normal.  I think this is absolutely fantastic!

The surgery should last about 3 hours and hopefully they will be able to perform it in laparoscopy.  At this hospital, they have performed more than 1600 kidney transplants since 1986, but only 40 from a live donor, and they lost a kidney only once.  So the statistics are pretty good for us, which is very encouraging.  Rossano is a bit scared.  Also, he’s going to be in the hospital for 14-16 days, so it’s a much longer stint for him, but he just told me he’s very happy to be able to say goodbye to Fernanda 2, the machine that keeps him company every night for his dialysis.

Here I am again.  I had a very busy week last week.  I spent most of the week going back and forth to the hospital in Parma, where the transplant is to be performed.  I was subjected to a miriad of tests and they drew a number of test tubes of blood; I lost count around Wednesday, but I think it was around 30.  Anyway, I seem to be reasonably healthy, and in fact the transplant is sheduled for sometime next week.  We are waiting to hear when exactly.  This week, I don’t have any tests, just a meeting with a magistrate to testify that I am donating the kidney to my nephew of my own will.  I still don’t know when this meeting is, but I am marvelling at the idea that the surgeon can obtain a meeting this fast given the Italian burocracy and its notorious snail pace!

The weather here is rather gloomy.  It’s been raining on and off for the past 4 days.  I miss the Colorado sun!  Due to the rain, we lost power a few times last week, always when I had come to my sister’s house to use their internet connection.  That’s one of the reasons I did not keep up with this blog.  I should be able to do better this week.

My sister Luana and I stopped at a festival last week, on the way back from the hospital.  I have some good pictures that I’ll try to upload with my next post.  Pictures of food of course!

Arrivederci!

I AM HERE!!!

My mother and I got to Italy Friday evening after a trip that seemed to me longer than usual, maybe because my back started hurting 30 minutes into the 9 hour 15 minutes flight from Denver to Frankfurt and we didn’t sleep a single minute.  Anyway, that part is over and I’m back to my Italian home.  The weather here is unusually warm for this time of the year, which is good because I didn’t bring any sweaters with me, planning on some serious shopping coming up soon!!!

Many of you know why I’m here, but many of you don’t, so I decided I’d better give you the all story from the beginning, after all I’ve got plenty of time… So here it goes:

I have a nephew named Rossano.  He is my sister Luana’sson and he is 35 years old.  When he was about 12 years old, he was diagnosed with a type of kidney disease that, we found out later, is hereditary and the women in my family may carry.  The women of every other generation may carry the disease but don’t develop the symptoms, only the men do.  Rossano was unlucky enough to get it.  We’ve known for more than 20 years now that he would need a transplant at some point in his life.  My brother-in-law and Rossano’s father, Virginio, always thought that he would be able to be the donor when the time would come.  The time came in September 2006, when Rossano’s tests showed a sudden and fast worsening.  Virginio was tested to a great length and in January 2007 it was determined that he was not a suitable donor because he had a minor problem with one of his kidneys and because the overall functionality of his kidneys was not good.  My husband Ron and I happened to be here because my sister had gone through a surgery herself and I offered to be tested for compatibility because my blood type is 0-.  I turned out to be an excellent match, but there was a BIG, literally BIG, problem: I was too heavy, and by a long shot.  According to the surgeon that was to perform the transplant, I had to loose about 80 pounds.  I told everybody I would loose the weight and then give the kidney to Rossano.  I don’t think Rossano believed me because he hugged me and said “it’sok auntie, it’s too much weight to loose, it’s enough that you offered”.  Well, I felt bad enough that he had to go into dialysis because I was too heavy to give him the kidney then, I sure didn’t want him to be on it forever because I couldn’t loose the weight!

So, Ron and I went back to the States and my long journey through serious weight loss started…

More about this tomorrow

Hello dearest friends, loyal guests and visitors to my blog! I will be leaving for Italy on October 23rd with my mother who has been here since the beginning of September.  I expect to be gone until December 2nd.  So many of you have been part of my 19-month-long journey to get to this departure and so many of you have expressed the desire of being informed of what’s happening that we decided to establish this blog.  My hope is that I will be able to have access to an internet connection often enough to upload some updates, and maybe pictures, with relative frequency.  Because I will be in the hospital part of the time, I don’t know how this is going to work.  I seriously doubt that the Parma hospital has wireless connection!  Anyway, I’ll try to make this blog as interesting as possible, so keep loging in.  Until the next time…Arrivederci!