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Walker McKnight - Journal

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Posted 2022-04-25T03:50:30Z

A long and winding road, our 3 year journey through medical trauma

When your nineteen yr old son, a healthy athlete who just started University months ago, comes home sick, you expect a quick turnaround for him to get better to head back to school, back to his exciting college adventure. On Friday March 8th, the Centra Care doc said you need to take your son to the emergency room at the Oviedo hospital, so I did. For a kid that was hugely afraid of getting stuck with a needle, so much so that he would break out in a sweat and need someone there to give him courage, the scar terrain of his body three years later is breathtaking to say the least. To say he has been at war would be accurate. Walker has fought tirelessly for 3 years to stay alive, enduring pain and suffering usually reserved for POW’s.[...]

Posted 2022-04-17T21:53:17Z

Easter 2022 update Team Walker

12 days ago Walker had very sick lungs that were literally killing him and no kidney function at all. Today, the nurse was just commenting to Walker that your lung SATS (oxygen saturation) are 100%. How grateful he is, and we all are, that he is awake and his lungs are performing very well after a major 3 organ transplant. His new kidney is a little sleepy but it will get back to work soon we are confident.[...]

Posted 2022-04-12T22:31:02Z

Celebrate the small wins

Post-Op Day 6


Same plan different day. Plasma exchange day 3 for reaction to meds that hit the kidney pretty badly. Good note: testing completed by hematology group show no underlying issues so they signed off of Walkers case. 😀 Blood test for antibodies do not show rejection of the kidney. 😀 Nephrology thinks/hopes the kidney will return in time. Lungs still look ok just very wet so they are going back to continuous CRRT (dialysis) gently pulling fluid off his body. His arms look like “Popeye”.  They plan to do a few more procedures today. Likely trach Wednesday or Thursday. They need him a bit more stable. He is sound asleep.  His skin looks good they keep him spotless. All in all a bit better than yesterday. We have to celebrate the small wins.[...]

Posted 2022-04-09T16:34:19Z

Third day update

Yesterday 4/8 was a very tough day for Candy especially and me as well. As they tried to wake him and failed many times, finally everyone coming to an understanding that this will be an extended process,  one we have seen before but had great hope would be different this time around. While we were shook up and very scared, the wonderful doctors gave us confidence that his physical condition was good 👍 and that they have seen this type of reaction before. 

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Posted 2022-04-07T14:52:24Z

So far, so amazing. Great success!!

Wow! Incredible! A miracle. We could not ask for a better outcome than what we are seeing right now. Walker came through 14 hours of surgery where they removed his bad lungs and replaced them with a new set flown in from far far away and then they inserted a new kidney. The docs said the hardest part and main reason it took so long was the difficulty of removing his dead left lung. So far, all his new organs are operating very well. He is breathing with his new lungs on a ventilator but that will come out shortly and his kidney is producing urine wonderfully. We could not ask for a better outcome for all things transplant since we got the call Tuesday morning, everything has gone according to the Mayo Physicians plans as described to us. Mayo Clinic is absolutely the best!! Thanks be to God for putting Walker in their very capable hands. His family is so very thankful for this miracle of life givin by God for Walker 3.0[...]