Last month, our transplant team noticed that Josiah looked lopsided. I assumed he was still swollen and from the surgery…but our Nurse Practitioner examined his belly and wanted to send him to ultrasound. The Doctor on duty said, “we will keep an eye on it.” At a month out ((after transplant) and two weeks later) it is standard to get an ultrasound, and it was confirmed that his swelling had collected into a sack and the images showed it was sitting on top of his kidney pressing it flat.
After our clinic appt, Josiah was able to be fit into the schedule to have that fluid aspirated, they removed 1.5 liters.
At our next clinic appt he went in for a repeat ultrasound to see if the fluid was returning. And they saw that it was. So we were scheduled for surgery and he had a drain implanted to help his body remove that fluid. The surgery went well, he felt sore after but that is reasonable.
The following day, we are at home, he seems fine but at lunch time when I called up to him to offer him food, he was napping… At 2:30 when he awoke, he was complaining of being overheated.
I felt his head and he was on fire! We took his temp, it was 102.7, he stated he was under a lot of covers. I take his temp again about 15 minutes later (a half hour after he awoke) and his temp was unchanged. He was more than overheated he had a fever. I called the hospital transplant team and they prepared our way for an ER visit.
We had correctly packed a bag and were admitted (after 6hours in the ER) at 11pm.
Despite his clear sample at clinic (just the day before), he had developed a UTI that had inflamed his kidney. Being so immunosuppressed they were concerned about the infection becoming something more dangerous and we have been in the hospital since Wednesday. All day Thursday he was running a fever, it seemed to break at 9pm, but returned around noon Friday. He has had a headache that he can’t shake & Tylenol isn’t helping. Other than that, has been in pretty good spirits.
They thought if all was going well, that we should be able to go home today, but with the return of the fever yesterday, I am not sure that will still be the plan.

Please keep us in your prayers,
Katherine