How to Evict Deadbeats and Lose Weight!

My old kidneys: Y1K and Y2K

Three weeks ago, I had surgery to remove both of the kidneys I was born with.  Over the years, they had - due to PKD (see earlier posts) - become increasingly fat, lazy and troublesome.  They no longer functioned, but just got bigger and caused trouble for the neighbors (in this case other organs), sort of like white-trash freeloaders.  In other words, they were deadbeats.  Here's a photo of my two old kidneys; I think you can see why they had to go!

There are three pieces of  good news.  First, my NEW kidney, "Y3K" (Yates' 3rd Kidney), which I got from my friend Sherry Robinson 20 months ago, is doing great.  In fact, it actually appears to be functioning better now that the deadbeats have been evicted!

Back in my college days...

The second piece of good news is that getting rid of those deadbeats resulted in me losing about 15 more pounds (on top of the 50+ pounds I lost after the transplant due to nausea caused by medications)! So I can add a new chapter to my "Easy Y3K Diet Plan" (patent pending)!  Seriously though, I needed to lose all that weight, and I'm thinner than I have been in several decades.  Now I just need to get back in shape...so I can dunk a basketball like I used to!

The last bit of good news is that the surgery went very well.  The two deadbeats were successfully evicted, and the surgeon estimated that they weighed 12 pounds (a normal kidney weighs 1/3 of a pound), so good riddance!  While they were in there, they even took out my appendix, so I never have to worry about getting appendicitis!  It'll just take a while for the internal wounds and the incision in my abdomen to heal (it's slightly over 12 inches long - hold a ruler up to your abdomen and you'll get the idea).  But so far, I'm healing well!  I expect to be back to work next week, and back to normal (if not better!) and back in the water diving, within a couple of months!  Thanks again to all of you who've supported me through this...and the earlier transplant...surgery.  With any luck, I won't need any surgery now for a long, long time!