Merry Christmas...

After the girls were born, Judy spent little time in the hospital. She seemed to be doing fine and wanted to get home to rest and recover. We were all very anxious to see if her pain would recede with the pressure of two babies now gone. At first it did seem as if this was the case. But not really in the drastic way we expected. We followed up with our doctors and it was decided that we needed to do an ultrasound of Judy’s leg to see if the blood clot had broken down. She was still on daily blood thinners and we needed to know if continuing them was still necessary. It had been about two weeks since the girls were born and we were eager to get moving with Judy’s recovery. I called Charlie to let him know we’d be in his department and requested our favorite ultrasound tech. She’s the head tech and she knows us. Thinking this would be a quick scan we brought Leo with us (and his babysitter). As we waited to be called back, Charlie came out to see us. We hadn’t seen him since leaving the rehab center and so a cheerful reunion ensued. Judy was so happy to see him and he was very positive about her recovery.

After scanning her leg, the tech moved up to the tumor area to have a look. She spent quite a bit of time doing this. It’s always unnerving when a scan takes longer than you expect or know it to take. What she found was that Judy’s kidney was severely swollen. The tech had us wait so she could show the images to Charlie. One of Charlie’s partners came out to discuss the situation with us. He strongly suggested that Judy get a CT scan right away and possibly have a drain put in. They needed the CT to get a better look at what was causing the swelling as the ultrasound was not detailed enough. He told us that it was urgent but not emergent. We had been there a few hours and Leo was getting upset. We went ahead with the CT, but decided to go home right after and schedule a follow up as soon as possible.

Charlie called me at 7:30 that night. After looking at the CT he wanted Judy back right away. Her kidney was in bad shape and waiting to do something about it was not a good option. We agreed that the following morning would be soon enough. He suggested that it would be a fast procedure. They would put a drain in and send us home. Then we would come back in a couple of days and they would pull the drain out and correct the issue that was causing the swelling. We were supposed to be in and out in an hour or two…

Six and a half hours later they decided that they needed to admit her. This was December 19th.