Transplant done!

It went well.
Michael, my second son, stayed overnight to keep me company, because Linda was at the hospital with Ben. We watched a movie and passed the time. I was beginning to get nervous about major surgery and was extremely glad to have Mike there. We got up early and Nancy, Linda's sister, came by to drive us to Emory Hospital. Nancy did everything right. I think I gulped and said something full of portent, like: "Well, I guess we're gonna go on and do this," and we left.
The day-surgery waiting room was a zoo. We sat off to one side away from the buzz. After about 20 minutes they called my name and I went back to preop. Nice helpful nurse, she learned I was a librarian and said she need to come by. By that time Linda was there and we held hands for a while. I think my blood pressure came down. Preop was not private and we listened in horror as some surgeon came by the stretcher next to us and matter-of-factly told the poor man there with his wife, about the cancer that had invaded his nose and oral spaces and they would not know how much would be left after his surgery. Jeez. No matter how tough you think you have it for yourself, somebody else has it far worse.
I think I was most anxious that the surgeons would see something they didn't like once they got in, and would abandon the transplant. So, I told they anesthesiologists as firmly as I could (one DOES want to sound sane at these moments), that even if they saw something wierd or something scary happened in surgery, I did not want to wake up with two kidneys, period. My last conscious thoughts, as they wheeled me off, were of Ben getting this kidney.
Postop was a zoo. I still have unkind thoughts about the nurse there. I woke up in a lot of pain and she and I had a verbal tussle about that, ending with her asking if I was typically an anxious person. I said something like: "Listen, I'm ten minutes out of abdominal surgery!". Finally the surgeon came by and he got me out of there, back to a holding room where the nursing was much better. Later, I asked the surgical team when they came by for a visit, what that was all about. They said "We were shocked - you woke up instantly when we pulled the tubes out and you gave us your wife's cellphone number - we didn't know what to do with you!"
Nursing up on the transplant floor was super good. I felt terrific. They let me go on the third day. I began to feel really crummy on the 5th day, so we went back in to the transplant center, they gave me an IV and I felt much better and went home. During laparoscopic surgery they pump your abdomen full of inert gas, sort of like a balloon, to give them more room to work. The gas hangs around for weeks until it is naturally absorbed and dispensed with by your body and that is the worst part of the whole deal. After that, piece of cake.