Tell Me Something I Don't Know

Today (yes, the whole day) was spent at the hospital going through a bunch of different appointments to prepare for transplant (when it eventually comes).  I started off with twelve tubes of bloodwork and then met briefly with the social worker, transplant recipient coordinator, anesthesiologist and lastly, the surgeon.  Overall, I didn't learn anything I didn't know already.  I was very impressed by the last two appointments, the anesthesiologist acknowledged that I have already been through this process a few times and promised to keep me asleep as long as I needed to be asleep and then wake me up when it's time to wake up - that's pretty much all I can ask for!  The surgeon that I met was different from the one I had during my second transplant at UH, but equally as wonderful.  Based off of the positioning of my previous two transplants, they are going to put this next one on my right side (the same side as my first transplant).  They will have to do a mid-line insertion, so right now the middle.  The plan is to keep all of my previous kidney's in - they act as a buffer against rejection.  Basically, my body is used to fighting against the "foreign object" (my previous two kidneys), they hope is that if you keep them in, my body will continue to just fight them and leave my new kidney alone.  If they take out my old, unplugged kidneys it will put more attention on the new kidney and put it at a higher risk for rejection.

I am still going to be challenging to match but there are a lot of programs in place to help people like me find good matches.  My kidney will most likely come from a deceased individual from a different province, but a live donor is still our first preference if we are able to find one, or do a swap, or something along those lines.

Overall it was a long day, but not too bad.  Mainly I'm frustrated that I had to take a whole day off of work (unpaid - hello self-employed) in order to talk to people about things I already know.  I still have to meet with the transplant nephrologist and get a CT scan for them to see what exactly is going on with my insides to figure out where to put my new kidney.  On a plus side, I got to pop into Wes' office and meet the second cutest little puppy!  Not a bad way to kill some time between appointments.