News from the Baumkamp

To update you on Papi's wellbeing: The procedure did not take the route of approaching the ureter to the kidney via the bladder. When the surgeon saw him that morning he explained that only 2 out of 10 trials are successful when a patient has a neo-bladder like Papi does. They simply don't find the entrance. Instead they decided to poke into the kidney through the side. When they did they found it was well inflamed and nothing else could be done. To drain her, they installed a so called "Fistel", a small little tube that drains the kidney out to the side and into a bag that hangs strapped to the upper thigh.

So far so good.

The draining of the puss and the administration of heavy antibiotics has cleared the inflammation, and the disturbing backaches of the past months that have worried him as much as the announcement of his kidney's reduced life force disappeared almost instantly.

The new focus of worries became the amount of liquid the kidney now produces. This amount was small to begin with and has gone down steadily every day. It may point to the fact the this little organ is not recovering after all.

This is not really a cause for concern other than the attachment to how she is doing. A silent kidney can stay in the body without causing any harm. But Papi has put much of his hope into her picking up fuller functioning again... Both Mami and I remind him that it is all right... to me it almost feels like an extended tutorial to let go. To let go. And to let go. It's being put in front of him again and again.

I am so glad to be here during this time. To have so little work. To have all this space to be present with them. What a blessing!