This week has been quite a whirlwind. Mitchell came home on Tuesday, exactly one week after transplant surgery, which was wonderful! His blood pressure was coming down, which meant two of his six blood pressure medications could be discontinued. Things were looking up and we were doing the backstroke in a bath of good news.
I finally heard a sense of calmness in Mrs. Lyne’s voice over the phone on Thursday after spending the entire day in the transplant clinic, and she even admitted with an exacerbated tone, “I’ve been surviving on adrenaline. Now that we’re home, I’m crashing and incredibly tired.” You may remember that she had a terrible car accident a few months ago and has been suffering from pain in her arm and neck. Mrs. Lyne’s physical therapy came to a complete halt two weeks ago when Mitchell went into surgery mode — so between that stopping, plus sleeping on hospital sofas and now on her own couch next to her sick son…her body has taken a beating.
She went on to talk about the kitchen floors needing to be cleaned and I stopped her, “The floors can wait. Get some rest.” She reported that things seemed to be moving along in the right direction, besides creatinine levels being a bit high, to which they’d adjust his anti-rejection meds to help fix that. He wouldn’t need to report back to clinic until another four days on Monday.
We hung up the phone and not even a few hours went by before she rang again. The news wasn’t good. It turns out his blood pressure going down wasn’t necessarily a good thing, per se. You see, it could actually be a sign of the kidney being in distress. He’d need to return to clinic the very next day, Friday.
Friday comes and goes and the takeaway isn’t what we wanted to hear. His high levels of creatinine and low blood pressure…adds up to a biopsy appointment scheduled for Monday afternoon. Unless, in the meantime, the levels normalize.
That means he’ll be admitted back into the hospital for at least 24 hours while they keep an eye on him and the procedure’s wound, that nothing goes awry from sticking a needle in his recycled kidney.
I went by their home today to say hello & drop off a few goodies, including a check for $750 thanks to the third batch of SAVE MITCHELL t-shirts being sold. I also had a set of coffee table books made for him & Jessica as a keepsake; Facebook and blogs stock full of digital photos are lovely but there is something to be said for tangible memories.
When I arrived he was asleep on the recliner chair, faithfully wearing his SAVE MITCHELL t-shirt; evidently the blood pressure meds make you extremely tired. The Yankees were on TV, of course, his favorite baseball team. Beside him was a gigantic organizer of pills. I couldn’t exactly count how many were in each slot, but I eyeballed at least 15 or even 20.
He currently has SEVEN battle wounds that are healing — from his transplant surgery, dialysis cath removal, nephrectomy, central line in his neck, and on and on. I imagine his torso looks like he was attacked in a back alley from criminals. Without fail, Mitchell’s quirky sense of humor managed to make me laugh out loud and I almost fell off the couch. His Mom explained, “In the past, when we’ve been at the beach and people ask, ‘Wow what are those scars from?!?’ Mitchell tells them they’re from a shark attack.”
The poor guy has been through more than many of us will experience in our entire lifetime by the age of nineteen years old. All he wants to do is live. Just breathe, and live, and laugh. I wish that for him.
But for now, he’ll continue to fight for his life, defy odds, keep doctors, surgeons and nurses on their toes to figure out why and the heck his body rejects kidneys time and time again. And we’ll continue to rally around him and his unbreakable family.
Thank you so much for the continued support and for always believing. Right now it’s time to swim, not sink. It’s time for a miracle. Let’s keep Mitchell and his family afloat by wrapping them up in a life vest of hope.
Much love,
Mary Beth
save mitchell 
May God continue to bless you and your family. Prayers for recovery and healing!