Giving v. Taking; Transplant 101

Hey all! I am back from my round of medical tests - you would not even believe all the places on my body that were xrayed, sonogrammed, echoed, CT'd, scanned, poked, pricked, and prodded. I am going to start journaling something like, Kidney Transplant Procedures 101.

One thing that happened throughout the day was that everywhere I went, one diagnostic room after another, each technician asked “are you a giver or a receiver?” It gave me pause to think about donors. I've been thinking about deceased donors - but there are living donors out there too. A lot of them are officially known to the transplant center as “altruistic” donors. Amazingly enough, these altruistic people simply call the transplant center and tell them they wish to donate one of their kidneys, just because. I find that absolutely totally amazing and “altruistic” doesn't even come close to defining such an extraordinary gift.

I also felt kind of selfish when I was asked if I were a giver or a receiver - interpreting the question as “I'm a TAKER.” Take! Take! Take!

I was simply amazed that there are people out there that think nothing about giving up one of their kidneys – they are willing to go through all the medical tests, the surgery, the follow-up, and living the rest of their life with one kidney.

From here, I have to wait for approval from the transplant committee (if any of the tests come back showing some other illness or cancer – things could change badly). I should be officially “on the list” in three weeks.

Here’s a little tidbit: there are three times the amount of people who NEED kidneys over the amount of kidneys available at any given time.

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Will New Health Plan Cover Me?

So, I start the process of getting on a transplant list tomorrow. It’s a real big deal! I have a typed up schedule of all the different procedures I’m going to have, along with a map of all the locations these procedures will take place. In fact, I have four pages of maps of Sacred Heart Medical Center. I will be visiting one of the parking garages (that’s plural), the Women’s Health Center, Lower Level 1 on the west end, then Lower Level 2 on the east end, then center, then to Lower Level 3 and they’ll treat me to breakfast if I can find the cafeteria, then the 3rd floor in the Doctor’s Building which appears to be next to the garage I’ll aim for.

I’ll have a marathon bloodletting at dawn, and somewhere in there I will have “tissue typing.” Along with CT scan, ultra sound, chest x-ray, another ultrasound, skin tests, echocardiogram – all in one fun day. I am only worried about the “tissue typing.” I mean – “tissue.” Is that like scraping skin off of me??? What’s the difference between skin typing and skin tests? Or are the skin tests to see what happened with the skin scrapings earlier in the day?

I’m taking the day off – maybe I should take Friday, too. After all, I might have no skin by Friday. I’ll definitely be low on blood.

I have a questionnaire to fill out too. “Potential Kidney Donors.” And a big blank space to fill in all my friends’ names. It’s here where I hesitate. How deep and true must a friendship be to ask one friend to go under the knife for another and end up with one working kidney? Yikes. I’m afraid I’m leaving my space empty.

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