Recovery

Hello everyone,

My apologies for this delay in update, our hospital internet cut out early yesterday morning and still isn't back yet. I had to wait till my dad checked into his hotel today to squeak in some online time.

Wow, it has been a slow release towards relief the past two days but I'm very happy to report that Momma Choi is now out of ICU and recovering steadily in her own room with her own nurse. As opposed to yesterday when she was hooked up to lots of machines and had about 20 tubes sticking out of her, she is now machine-less and only has 2 or 3 tubes attached! :). Also, her new kidney is making a respectable amount of urine and getting toxins out of her body at a pace the doctors are happy with.

Momma Choi's surgery ended around 5am yesterday. She woke up around 10am but we weren't allowed to see her till 4pm when they moved her down from ICU into our new room. When we first saw her she was in pretty bad shape. Her new kidney wasn't working very well (i.e. not getting toxins out her body well) and the doctors were a little concerned. She also was in a lot of pain and was vomiting up this awful green stuff. It was hard to feel like we were anywhere in the clear seeing her in that state that so everyone was still feeling on edge even after a successful surgery. It wasn't until around 8pm last night after she woke up from a her nap that she started to feel a little like herself again and one by one we started to relax a little. She was in much less pain and had stopped vomiting. Also, we were very happy to find that her new kidney was now making more than 300 ml of urine per hour! I think that's a lot.

She is now recovering steadily and almost painlessly in our new room with our new nurse who is amazing. We were told by our hospital that we had to hire an outside 24 hour care nurse as the nurse staff here is booked so our very own Choi family nurse arrived yesterday to monitor her toxins, blood pressure and help her wash up in the morning, etc. Even though she doesn't speak any English or Korean, her niceness comes across so vividly, our family is kinda in love with her and wishes she can come live with us forever.

Dad arrived today and we were very happy to see him. He offered to switch off hospital duty with me today so I am staying in a hotel room tonight. As soon as I got here I took a hot shower and jumped into bed for the deepest 3 hour nap of my life. I am now feeling like a person again with the unshowered, stressed, Chinese-zombie look I was quietly cultivating finally starting to melt away.

I had a #10 from McDonalds for lunch and my dad is bringing me some hot wings from KFC tonight for dinner. Life is good. Mom is doing better. Clean white bathrobes in hotel rooms is so good. Time for more sleep.

Thanks to everyone for your emails, thoughts, messages and prayers.

Love,

Minna