Today Garrett and Jerran got together and went and saw the new Kevin Hart Will Ferrell movie, Get Hard. The movie was hilarious. The surgery team at UCSF did a fabulous job sewing these two up. They laughed throughout the movie and they stayed together and didn’t rip open their wounds, “they stayed hard” throughout the movie. You have to see the movie to understand.
After the movie we had a special visitor at lunch, Jerran’s son Liam came to lunch with us at Buffalo Wild Wings.
Today Jerran had his first follow-up visit and Garrett’s second visit at UCSF. Before we met with Elizabeth they had to do another round of blood test. Of course Jerran has a selfie…
His phlebotomist wasn’t real happy with taking pictures but we all know Jerran — he is a rebel.
We then went up to the seventh floor to meet with Elizabeth.
Jerran was first in and everything was great. All his numbers in his blood tests were fine. He is healing good and he is off all of his pain medication. He is officially done with UCSF. He will meet with his own doctor in six months.
Garrett also had a good visit. Everything seems to be on track with his recovery. They are very pleased with his progress. In fact, his next appointment is in two weeks instead of next week. The best news Garrett got was he can wake up every three hours to pee up from two.
We were then off to lunch at Big Mouth Burgers. Jerran was very excited not only for the cheeseburger with a fried egg on it but for the Blue Moon beer he had with his lunch.
It has been exactly one month since he had his last beer. Here’s to Jerran, a well deserved beer!! You have earned it.
Well can you believe it its been two weeks since surgery. Doesn’t seem it has been that long.
Everything is still going well with Garrett. Although not much has changed he seems to be improving everyday. Garrett is looking better and better.
The last couple of nights we’ve gotten to see Jerran. Jerran is doing great. He has cut back on his pain medication. He is hoping that he will be able to drive soon. He is now able to take very long walks, up to a mile at a time.
Tomorrow both Jerran and Garrett have appointments back at UCSF. We are going to ride up together and then go to lunch after.
Today Garrett had a special visitor, Ms. Flores from Irvington High School. Ms. Flores helped Garrett out so much while he was a student at Irvington. Without her help we don’t know if Garrett would have graduated.
We don’t know who was happier today, Garrett or Ms. Flores.
All we have to report is Garrett has had a great weekend. He spent most of it with several of his friends playing video games and watching March Madness.
Sunday he had a great visit with his aunt and uncle from Roseville and his cousins.
He is feeling better every day and is walking several times a day.
This weekend we participated in a block sale. Everyone commented on our house. When we arrived home from the hospital the front of the house was decorated with banners and posters.
When we walked in the house there were streamers and ribbons hanging throughout. It made the homecoming quite special for Garrett.
Garrett has a blood test tomorrow at Kaiser and then another clinic visit on Wednesday at UCSF.
It’s Fish Taco Friday! Mandi took Jerran to pick up some quick tacos at Tortilla Factory. While he was standing inside waiting, a woman was watching him. She noticed his shirt, so finally pointed at it and said, “your shirt…”
Jerran engaged. “Oh, yeah, I gave a kidney away a couple of weeks ago–“
“To Garrett!” she finished.
“Yes, how did you know?” he said.
“Can I hug you?” she asked.
Margaret and her daughter and granddaughter are friends of the Ramos family. She’s been reading every blog, keeping up with the story.
“We just love Garrett so much!” She said.
What a small world. And what a precious woman. She came out to the car to hug Mandi, and just couldn’t say enough about how grateful she was and how wonderful that everyone is doing so well. She and her daughter are planning to deliver a meal on Sunday. We hope they’ll stay and visit.
Today Garrett had his first visit back at UCSF. We had to arrive an hour early for blood test. We then got him a quick bite to eat so he could take his morning meds and headed up to the 7th floor for our first clinic visit.
Our first stop was to get Garrett’s vitals checked. Everything was perfect there and we moved on to the pharmacist. We went over his medications and everything seems to be fine.
We then met with our Nurse Practitioner, Elizabeth. She will be our boss for the next 3 months. What she says goes.
We went over all of Garrett’s blood test with Elizabeth. His numbers are outstanding. His creatine level was 1.43 which is awesome. His phosphorus level was a little low which is normal for the medications he’s on. This is something new for us since we have battled his phosphorus level for so many years being so high. Elizabeth even ask Garrett if he liked soda, when he said he did she said he could have a soda to bring his level up. You should have saw the look on Liz’s face, priceless.
Elizabeth would like us to up his walking a little bit more each day. He needs to continue to wake up every 2 hours at night time to empty his bladder. The super kidney was attached at the bladder so we gotta make sure the bladder doesn’t fill up and interfere with the surgical incision. Next week we probably will go to once every 3 hours.
Overall the visit was just great today. We were so happy when we left hearing all the good news that Garrett got.
Elizabeth did have one suggestion for us. I think everybody has seen in all the photos Garrett has taken he’s holding a pillow. He says this feels good because he still feels like his kidney is going to fall out of him. Elizabeth suggested that we get a velcro wrap to go around his waist. He also has had some minor back pain when walking. This is from the surgery. This wrap will help both his kidney and his back when he’s walking. So we will be off to Walgreens today to pick one up.
Elizabeth also said it would be fine to go to baseball games or the movies or whatever. She would like Garrett to go out and live life . She said, “you got a new kidney go out and use it.” That made Garrett happy. He can now go see the new Kevin Hart movie next week. On the way home we called Jerran and made a date for the movie next week.
Garrett at the Kidney Clinic. Read the inscription on the wall. It couldn’t be better said how we feel about Jerran and Garrett
Silly Garrett and a soda
Garrett had another great night at home and sleep last night. He has been very good about getting up every 2 hours and go going the bathroom and empty his bladder. Again when Garrett woke up he had a huge appetite and wanted to eat breakfast. This is something new for him. Before when he was on dialysis, he never woke up hungry. He always feeling sick and never wanted to eat. For the second day in a row he wanted scrambled eggs with chicken in it. This is very exciting. Again he had a great nights sleep.
Yesterday on our afternoon walk we went by the High School and a baseball game was going on. We stopped and watched an inning or so. Garrett loved seeing his old friends and coaches out there. He had to get home before mom caught him at the game because she wants nobody breathing on him.
Tomorrow we have our first clinic appointment back at UCSF. We are looking forward to seeing our doctors and getting back test results to see how well that Super kidney is doing.
Yesterday we had a great visit with Jerran at our house. On the drive home the boys had the SNL jeopardy skit on their phone . Jerren laugh so hard he thought his stitches were going to rip out. Garrett is looking forward to the many visits he will have with Jerran in the future.
Saying goodbye is always hard.
We would like everybody to keep the Tran family in their thoughts and prayers. They lost their son, Thaddeus this week, to cancer.
Best night EVER!!!
Garrett set his alarm so he could wake up to pee–have to keep that pressure off the new kidney. Liz got up at 3:00 am and everything was great. Garrett was feeling really good.
This morning Gary woke Garrett up and he said, “That’s the best night of sleep I have ever had. I had a pool of drool and can’t remember the last time that happened. ”
Gary said that simple statement almost made him cry. Sleep is so precious and healing. And we all want the best for our kids.
Garrett ate breakfast and took his meds. No problems. No nausea, no vomiting.
Buh-bye dialysis meds!
Jerran’s already going stir crazy. Gary picked him up to hang with Garrett. They got their walk in.
Kidney wishes to brighten up Garrett’s room and keep him focused on getting better.
Great news, Garrett is waiting for his discharge papers and we are going home. He has had excellent care here at UCSF but it’s time to go home.
First and foremost Garrett’s new kidney is working perfect. There have been no issues whatsoever with it. Jerran truly has or had a super kidney. It just seems that Garrett had a bad reaction to one of his medications.
Another issue he ran into was he was getting nauseous every time he took his rejection medication. This is a common side effect of one of them so that medication was changed. He did great last night and today on the new medication.
The only problem we have right now is his high blood pressure. It is controlled enough for us to go home. They will be monitoring it in our weekly clinics.
It was a great weekend having his two brothers home. Yesterday we had a great visit before Trevor had to fly home. We are lucky enough to have J.T. and Kayla here till Wednesday night.
Today the best birthday present Liz could get, is having Garrett come home.
Garrett slept a lot yesterday so last night his sleep was off and on. His body is generally just sore from being in bed.
This morning he ate almost a whole breakfast sandwich, by far the most food he has eaten at once. He then walked a couple of laps with mom.
He took his morning meds and again he felt nauseous. He was given a shot and it calmed his stomach.
The doctors decided to keep him one more night and are adjusting his medication. Since this medication will be a part of his life the doctors want to get this right. Hopefully we can get it right and get him feeling better.
Garrett is looking forward to his brothers returning to the hospital today. He will get to visit for several hours with them before Trevor has to fly home. We were lucky Trevor was given Friday off of the academy so he could spend the weekend with his brothers.
Before Justin and Trevor come to the hospital they are going to visit with their new brother, Jerran. Garrett is bummed he won’t be there, but like he said, “June is right around the corner and we will all be better and together. ” He is always so positive.
Garrett thanks everyone for their wishes and prayers.
garrett updates 
