Testing: Day 1

Most, if not all, of you have had to do the fasting blood test right? No eating or drinking after midnight the night before your test and all. Well I had to do that for my test Tuesday morning. Except I ate lunch at 2:30 on Monday, and kinda forgot to eat dinner. So when I got to my appointment at 10am (after sitting in traffic for THREE hours) it had been 19 1/2 hours since I’d last consumed food. I was, to put it mildly, starving. They tell me they don’t have my paperwork, and that I’ll have to wait until they find it before I can get my blood drawn. Oh, by the way, the wait is another hour and a half, and please have a seat over there. Apparently, they hadn’t heard I’d not had food for almost TWENTY HOURS AND OMG I AM GOING TO GNAW OFF MY ARM! Thankfully, the hour and a half turned out to be 45 minutes, and they found my paperwork right before I was called. They took 12 vials of blood; 6 small, and 6 huge. Then they sent me in for an EKG. This part scared me, because I’d never had or seen an EKG before, and all I knew was it was some test on your heart. What a waste of fear that was. They stick a bunch of wires on you, run a machine for 45 seconds, and then detach you. The setup and take down took longer than the actual test. I then took a chest x-ray, followed by a blood pressure check (108/64 yay!). Finally at noon I was dismissed for lunch. By that point, I was starting to get a little light-headed from lack of food. I met up with Duke for lunch, and ate some not-so-fabulous pasta and marinara sauce. Disappointing, truly, as pasta is my favorite food. This just had a sauce on it that made me want to vomit a little, despite me being starved. The bread, however, was wonderful. I should have just made a meal of that! (And I wonder why I’m fat.)

I got back to the hospital at 2:20 for my 2:30 appointment with the Transplant Nephrologist. You’d think, being a medical institution, they’d be running late, right? Nope! I had my height, weight, and temperature checked, along with another shot at my blood pressure (110/72 this time), and was seated in the exam room by 2:33. I didn’t even have a chance to finish the paperwork they’d wanted me to fill out, they were that on top of things. The doctor came in and introduced himself, and asked me a series of questions on why I was donating, if I was being coerced or forced to donate (apparently that’s pretty common), and about my medical history. He then did a brief physical exam (please explain to me why doctor’s tell you to breathe out after you’ve taken a breath? As if there was another option?) before asking me "What do you know about kidney donation?" Now, I don’t know what answer he was expecting from me, but it sure as hell wasn’t the one he got. I listed everything I knew. Infections stats, death stats, life expectancy after donation, risks, pros, cons, etc. There’s almost nothing about the process that I don’t know. When I was done, he just sat there quietly for a second, looking almost shell shocked, and then said "You’ve just ruined my entire spiel. I think you are the most prepared patient I’ve ever had." Now, that sounds all complimentary and nice, and I took it as intended. But later I started thinking about it. How is it possible for someone to go through this process, for someone to offer to be sliced open and have an organ removed, and not know everything there is to know about it? How is it possible that someone can consider doing this, and not know what the risk is? That just boggled me. Anyhow, he went through his speech anyway, just to make sure there was nothing I missed. The only thing he added was that they suggested I go off my birth control pill for one month preceding, and one month after the surgery, just to reduce the risk of blood clots. The pill already has a risk of blood clots all by itself, but added to this surgery, they’d prefer I didn’t take the extra risk. Fine by me! Jas was less than pleased when I told him, but he’ll get over it.

So that’s it. I have to wait a week or two for test results, and I go back on Jan 3rd for more tests, including the psychiatric exam. That part will be fun. Not because I think I’ll fail, but because I’m curious to see how they go about determining if I’m of sound mind. After that fun round of testing we wait, yet again, for the transplant committee to determine if I meet the criteria for donation. It’s a long time to keep our fingers crossed, but worth the wait if it works out. Today was supposed to be Kelly’s transplant, and I’m sure it was hard for her. Hopefully, in a month or two, I can give her a great belated Christmas present.

Huge thanks to everyone who has been praying, thinking happy thoughts, or just plain keeping their fingers crossed for me. It means more to me than I can adequately express.