AND SO IT BEGINS
I began my testing to see if I could be a live kidney donor for my brother Aaron. I had already done a blood type test and knew that we were the same in that regard. The rest of the testing continued off-and-on for a period of about 6 months. I'm going to outline what I remember in as much detail as possible about the testing process. Maybe it would help someone...
I began my testing to see if I could be a live kidney donor for my brother Aaron. I had already done a blood type test and knew that we were the same in that regard. The rest of the testing continued off-and-on for a period of about 6 months. I'm going to outline what I remember in as much detail as possible about the testing process. Maybe it would help someone...
January 2008
Collect urine for 24 hours straight. Yep, it's not sexy, but you have to do it.
February 2008
Minor Testing. I can't remember/don't have a record of what this involved, other than a reference to it as "minor" which probably means it was a little blood work or something. (Though I can't believe I referred to blood anything as "minor").
March 2008
Lots of Tests and Meetings. I went to UVA to meet with a physician, a social worker, and a psychologist. That day I also had a lot of lab work done (*See following story*), had an EKG and an ultrasound of my kidneys.
*Ok, so this blood work was pretty major. They had to draw something like 14 vials. For someone who faints at the prick of a finger, I knew I was going to be a gonner. I told the nurse before she started that I needed to lay down during the procedure and that I would likely faint. I held out as long as I could, but started blacking out around vial 12. By 14, I was gone. Hey, but at least she finished. I woke up and EMS had arrived. Apparently, since the lab is a separate area and there are not doctors present, only lab techs, they have to call EMS. As I became more conscious, I told the EMS guy just to give me 5 minutes and I'd be fine - besides, I've been here and done this (fainting) MANY times in my life - more than I could count. He didn't seem to want to listen. I had to laugh when he took my blood pressure and said, "It's pretty low"! I know I shouldn't say this, (and I didn't at the time) but honestly the words "NO SH?T" came to mind first. "I JUST HAD 14 VIALS OF BLOOD TAKEN YOU IDIOT!" Then he asked me if I wanted to be taken to the emergency room. Again, snarky comments came to mind, "Seriously, so you can poke me with more needles that started this in the first place?!" I kept quiet and managed to simply say "no thank you" and explained this was common for me and that I'll walk away in 5 minutes like nothing ever happened. I was right. I left and went on to my next appointment, grabbing some juice on the way - or maybe it was a Dr. Pepper - anyway, it was good!*
July 9, 2008
CT Scan and Meeting. I cried like a baby when they were about to give me the IV (first IV ever) for the CT Scan, but I actually did okay. Never cried before, but turns out crying actually relieved a lot of the anxiety and kept me from passing out. The CT Scan was actually kinda cool....no pain involved with that at all. When they inject the dye, it feels pretty funny...warm all over, and quite frankly, makes you feel like you wet yourself...but wears off quickly.
After that test was over, I headed to the transplant clinic to meet with the surgeon. Their initial peak at the CT Scan looked good, and the surgeon, Dr. Sawyer, talked me through the surgery, risks, etc. I had to lay down because even talking about it made me a slight bit queezy, but again, I made it through fine (with some help and distraction from my best friend Kristine, who took some time off work to be with me). Dr. Sawyer explained that the risks associated with living with one kidney are not THAT much higher than living with two. However, as the he put it, "you certainly won't be healthier after the surgery than before." He also explained that if something ever happened to my remaining kidney, I would go to the top of the transplant list to receive a kidney since I was a living donor. Very ethical process I believe.
Because of the CT Scan, I also found out that I indeed had an Alpha and a Bravo kidney (a large and a regular size kidney). My left kidney was normal size but my right was quite noticeably larger, a couple/several inches in fact. This did lead to a debate among the surgeons over which kidney they would take. One surgeon said to leave me with the larger one. However, they also saw that my diaphragm was resting on the artery leading to my right kidney, compressing it. So another surgeon thought it best to take that one since they didn't know if that compression would lead to any issues later in life. To help decide, I would have to come back in for testing.
July 16, 2008
Split-Function Test and More Blood Work. This Split-Function test is basically done so that they can determine if both kidneys are working at similar levels (it should usually be about 50/50). The test was done at the Department of Nuclear Medicine at UVA. Basically they inject you (yep, another IV, but I did MUCH better with this one...no tears) with some sort of radioactive stuff (it doesn't hurt at all, and there are not any side-effects) and then you lay there for 30 minutes while they are taking pictures. The nurse turned on the classic rock music station while I was waiting so I was in pretty good spirits. I got to watch the monitor as the testing was going on - meaning I got to see Alpha and Bravo kidney in all their glory (well, a black and white fuzzy picture anyway)...Alpha was definitely larger.
I also had all my pre-op blood work done (10 tubes) and amazingly enough, I didn't get light headed or pass out! Looked like I was FINALLY getting better at this stuff...just in time too!
The Next Day
The test results were all in and everything looked "super great" according to the nurse. Each kidney's function was very normal - 47% left, 53% right - a fairly typical split. So, they decided to take the right one - ALPHA - due to the diaphragm compression factor. They would be correcting the compression before giving it to my brother.
They explained that initially, my kidney function would be cut in half (obviously), but that over time, the remaining kidney (BRAVO) should compensate up to about 80-90% of my original function.
The surgery that had been penciled in for July 24th was now officially a go!
Tuesday, July 24, 2008
GO TIME! My family all packed into the hotel room the night before the surgery. Aaron and I both had to drink some stuff to "clean us out" that night - fun times. I don't think I slept extremely well, but that was to be expected. Aaron and I were both nervous, but still in good spirits.
Early the morning of the 24th we headed to the hospital, got into the surgery prep room, and began getting ready. The anesthesiologist came to talk to us about what was going to happen, IV was put in - ugh, socks put on, etc. Before you knew it they were telling my mom and I that it was time. We both got teary eyed then. They took me in first. Aaron's room was right beside mine and as I wheeled past I made some joke and gave a thumbs up.
The operating room was so sterile looking...a good quality for an operating room I suppose...but I don't remember too much. Before I knew it, I was OUT!
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