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My last post was Tuesday. Here it is Thursday already and I’m sure most of you have been wondering what’s going on with Kratzer. So here is the story with more detail than anybody needs to know.

Wednesday was a day of waiting for that gas to pass, punching the Morphine button and flirting with the nurses. 🙂 Well it didn’t pass on Wednesday so Thursday was more of the same with no substantial nourishment. I graduated from the IV only to a clear broth, jell-0, sherbert, and of course the IV still dumping several liters of fluid into me every day. This fluid wasn’t so bad with the catheter as I didn’t have to think about urinating. The nurse just emptied the jug when needed. After they removed the catheter on Wednesday evening I was getting up to the bathroom every hour to get rid of all the fluids. In one sense the hardest part of this whole process has been the lack of sleep for one reason or another. Vital sign checks, IV equipment acting up, blood draws, housekeeping, potty breaks, walking the halls and a very noisy neighbor that had something a lot worse than mine.

By mid morning Thursday I had convinced the powers that be that as much as I like the nurses and all the attention that they were giving me I could do this waiting at home and save myself and Medicare a lot of money. I promised to not eat solid food till the gas had passed and they they started getting the required signatures to make a Thursday departure happen. As it turned out, without warning, I had the long awaited and prayed for passing of gas before they got the papers signed. So we got home around 1:30 in the afternoon.

So the most important part that you all have been waiting for. The tumor was benign! It was a golf ball sized oncocytoma. It was completely removed with very little loss of kidney tissue. We are praising the Lord. Your prayers have been effectual and I am very grateful to everyone who has in any way expressed their concern or lifted my name to the great Healer.

So I am anticipating a quick and complete recovery from this point on. I have my supply of powerful pain pills that I’m allowed 2 every 4 hours and I haven’t needed more than two ever six hours so far. I’ve got the mandatory follow-up doctors appointments but don’t anticipate any surprises. So a couple weeks of healing and back to my normal activities. I’m actually planning on going to some low stress woodturning meetings on Saturday and Sunday. So I’m having no fluids after 8:00PM tonight and going to bed at my usual 11:00PM with my trusty CPAP machine & I hope I don’t have to move for six to 8 hours.

Night, night!