Surgery and Olympic Training All In One Day....

Buff Anna Modlin

Day 23 post transplant............

Today Anna decided that this was the first day of Olympic Training. We walked more briskly than ever around the unit for a total of 7 laps. That is over a mile...... Because Anna was feeling so strong she declared these her first land exercises in preparation for her swimming competition at the next Transplant Olympics. And we were off and ...............

Then we saw the team. Anna is also becoming an olympic peeeeeer. Yes that would be an appropriate category for a transplant recipient with kidney failure who overcame the injury. She is getting better, so much better that they decided to not do dialysis today and to watch her kidney numbers one more day to see how much improvement she has made. Yaaahooooo. That was good news.

And then they decided that she needed another surgery. There is still some fluid behind her left lung so, they are going in laproscopicly to take out the fluid, work with the chest wall to cause more adherence between the lung and chest wall and inflate her lungs to 100%. It is now at 95%. They believe this will solve this issue for Anna to ensure the full use of all of her new lung capacity. They will leave the left chest tube in for another two days to be sure there is no more drainage and in surgery will take out her right chest tube as the right side is fine and needs no other fixing.

Anna Is Amazing, Attitude All The Way To The OR

I had made a chair massage appointment at 1:50 and had just settled in for about 10 minutes when my phone vibrated in my pocket. It was Anna and they were to get her for surgery in 15 minutes. Well that ended that but after they wheeled her away I was able to go back and get a relaxing rub. It helped a lot.

Yes, it feels sometimes or like everyday, one step forward, one step back. But really overall we are moving forward. We just hope that she will not slide backwards from this other surgery. There will be tiredness and soreness but let us hope that is all.



Sara and I are in the surgical waiting area. Sara is crocheting. She is a crafty one and enjoys the relaxation that comes from yarn arts. I am blogging and updating. We are also visualizing Anna in a successful uneventful surgery and the resumption of our Olympic Training.........