June 22, 2010
By CHAUNCEY ROSS
chauncey@indianagazette.net
The very way it came together is the same way it continues.
Sarah Taylor, of Indiana, posted the update of her recovery from kidney-transplant surgery on the Facebook social networking website.
It's the same site she credits for connecting her with Sara Steelman, of Indiana, who agreed to donate a healthy kidney when Taylor was diagnosed in last-stage kidney failure.
Taylor posted this status report Sunday: "Sara and i are both home!!! She is well on her way to recovery for 4-6 weeks, I on the other hand am gladd to be home, 38 meds, no visitors for 2-3 weeks, no outside in stores or crowds for 3 months, …"
She and Steelman had been discharged from the hospital on Saturday.
Taylor and Steelman reported to Allegheny General Hospital on June 14 and underwent the two-part procedure the following day. Surgeons removed one of Steelman's kidneys, then implanted it in Taylor, whose kidney failure was brought on in 1999 by an aortic dissection and aneurysm that cut the blood flow to the lower half of her body.
The slow decline in kidney function reached near bottom last year -- they worked at 14 percent efficiency, Taylor's doctor told her. She signed up for the kidney transplant list at Allegheny General and was told she probably would wait four to six years for a cadaver donor kidney.
Unless a live donor came forward in the meantime.
Anxious for relief, Taylor, 53, floated the proposition on Facebook last November. Within days, she said, 197 friends and others offered to be tested as possible kidney donors.
Doctors sifted through the list, called in four people for ongoing tests and screenings, and named Steelman as the most suitable match in May.
Taylor and Steelman this morning said their follow-up appointments are scheduled June 30 at Allegheny General.
Taylor said she's still contending with pain and has graduated to climbing up and down the stairs to avoid staying still all the time.
She's not allowed to have visitors for two weeks and has been told to avoid crowds for three months. Rejection is a risk for a year -- thus the dozens of pills doctors have prescribed for her.
"It's a matter of getting adjusted and maintaining a schedule," Taylor said.
"But I feel like the weight has been lifted. The anxiety of ‘When is this going to happen?' -- that whole thing has been lifted from me. I feel so much more positive about leading a regular life and just moving on."
Steelman's recovery has been faster. Her surgery was laparoscopic -- a pair of small incisions for cutting and tying ducts another about 3 to 3½ inches wide for removal of the kidney.
Steelman, 64, said she no longer needed pain medication on Friday. Now, the sensation is more like pressure than pain, she said, and it's less than she experienced when she once suffered some broken ribs.
Dealing with aftereffects of anesthesia was the most annoying, she said. A headache left her with no desire for coffee, and the lack of caffeine compounded it.
Jumping back into normal life, as her surgeon instructed, has accelerated her recovery, Steelman said.
Her daughter, Amy, cooked her first meal at home, a dish featuring "sweet potatoes with six or seven curry spices, and a bit of yogurt and some cilantro from the garden sprinkled on it. And some hot, mixed pickles," Steelman said.
"Monday, Amy and I walked from the house (on North Sixth Street) to the library and back so I could renew my library books," Steelman said. "And my neighbor and I went to Blue Spruce Park for the Master Gardeners' pollinator count. Yesterday was a pretty active day."
Yoga and zumba are on hold for a couple more days, Steelman said.
When she felt worst, Steelman said, she reminded herself the kidney she donated to Taylor had quickly started working for her. She added an appeal for anyone who wouldn't think of being a live kidney donor to consider adding "organ donor" status to his or her driver's license.
"In a way it's kind of hilarious. I live two blocks from Sarah and if she hadn't put up that Facebook post, it would not have been salient for me," Steelman said.
"The way we were in touch was occasionally seeing each other at the theater. Without Facebook I would have not known about it."
With her restrictions on visitors and going out in public, Taylor continues to rely on the telephone and Facebook to get her word out.
"… A blessing to have a new kidney that seems to be going, back to pitts every 10 days, and blood work twice a week, small price to pay for life!!! Thank you all for the well wishes and prayers, more when i can!!," Taylor wrote on her Facebook page.
Apparently it still will be some time before Taylor is eligible for what has become one of her trademark greetings in Facebook posts over the past few months: "Hugsssss!"
Communications at Large ... 