Hello,

For those of you who don’t know my story, I am currently in Wisconsin after having undergone a Renal Autotransplant for Nutcracker Syndrome. I have been out here for two weeks and had only planned (and budgeted) to be out here for three weeks. That being said, I had also only planned (and budgeted) to be out of work for 12 weeks.

Nutcracker Syndrome has caused me to suffer for 19 years and I was so excited to finally have this life changing, out of state, surgery. Unfortunately, Tuesday morning (exactly 14 days post op from my initial surgery), I woke up feeling off. Initially, I was hot, dizzy, extremely fatigued and just generally unwell. Throughout the day, my symptoms worsened until eventually the pain and the earlier noted symptoms were bad enough that I needed to report to the ED.

In the emergency room I had 2 CT Scans and an ultrasound of my transplanted kidney. These scans found several pockets of fluid in my body. The first (and largest) pocket is behind my bladder and has approximately 300ml of fluid in it. The second largest is found around my newly positioned kidney. The last sac of fluid is found in the surgical bed where my kidney used to be before the transplant. This one is infectious appearing on scan although my team is unsure of this and will test the fluid to find out.

This all being said, I am headed back into be OR at 7:30 this morning. They will be reopening my entire incision to access the fluid. The fluid is either lymphatic fluid or urine. If it’s urine, my newly sewn ureter is leaking and will need removed and resewn to a new spot in my bladder to have the seal corrected. Either way, the fluid will be drained during surgery and I will wake up with at least one drain, but likely many. Due to this, I will likely be stuck out of state longer than the 3 weeks we had anticipated and budgeted for. Our flights are currently booked for 7 days from now, but even after the first surgery, I was admitted for 8 days and required to stay in town for 2 weeks after that. The team wasn’t willing to speculate on when I could head home as it’s all based on how I do after this second operation now.

As embarrassing as it is to ask, my family could use some help. We were just getting on our feet after Watson was born and I finished school and this complication will likely set us further back than we anticipated. While out here, I am paying Sammy’s salary as I have to have a caregiver with me and Mitch didn’t have enough PTO. Sam is missing work to be here and couldn’t afford to come without having me reimburse her for that missed time. We will need to extend our rental car to keep getting me to and from the hospital for appointments, we will need to rebook flights home once we have a new return date, pay for extra time at the transplant house and incur more expenses for food and my loss of income while we’re out here.

We appreciate any help you can offer and if you can’t help financially, we appreciate even just prayers and shares.

Thank you,

Cortney