Speedbump

I've come upon a problem that has slowed down my kidney testing... Over the past 8 months I've gotten strep throat 4 times, so my doctor and the local Ear, Nose & Throat doctor agreed that my tonsils had to come out... Boo... The ENT doctor actually said my tonsils were "ugly"...

Since I've gotten tired of being sick with strep, missing work, taking all the antibiotics, I too thought it would be for the best.

(Not for the weak of stomach)
So this past Monday, May 24th, I showed up at little Harris Regional Hospital at 9:30am. They gave me a pregancy test (required before they can put a lady under), gave me the pretty dress to wear and started my IV. The nice nurse gave me some "happy medicine" to help me relax. It just made me feel very silly and I laughed a lot. Bryan told me a few of the funny things that I said that I didn't remember, something about kissing or something. They rolled me back to the OR with the big round lights and the nice doctor cut out my tonsils... Ouch!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oM-8a4dGFVY
(this video is one of the less graphic ones)

He said they were in real bad shape, full of debris (ie. food partices and infection) and oozing with yellow goop. Now that I think about that, I'm so glad they are gone.

Monday after surgery all was well at the hospital. Yeah my throat hurt, but I expected it to. Probably about a 3 or 4 on the pain scale of 1 to 10. I drank and ate soup all afternoon, was very excited to find Brandon and Brenda Walsh on the Soap Network in rare form at West Beverly, felt fairly well, kept down the happy pain medicine, so they sent me on home. It was good to be on my couch and in my bed. The next couple days were a daze of pain meds, movies, naps, pain meds, soup, naps, pain meds, Season 5 of Friends, so all was well and dandy.

Come Friday, Saturday and Sunday; not good days. My throat hurt so much worse I didn't care one bit about eating or drinking anything, steady 5 on the pain scale. Apple sause made me cry.
I could feel the scabs back in my throat, like big fleemy boogers that wouldn't go away. Hurt so much to talk I was writing down all my requests. Since Sunday and even now I have to sleep sitting up b/c my breathing gets all werid and blocked.

Wow this is getting so winy!!!

Bryan was my saving grace. He did everything I needed him to, even without me asking. He took care of everything Madison needed and encouraged me, or better yet made me eat something when I had no interest what so ever. He's pretty much the best thing ever and I feel so very blessed to have him in my life.

Well, I went back to work yesterday which wore me out, but today was so much better and I think each day will do the same.

I've been eating real food today; mac-n-cheese, baked beans, steamed brochile and a few other things, as long as it's soft and in small bites. Right now it feels better to eat then it does to talk. I like to eat better anyway, so that's awesome!!

I am so ready for a giant hamburger w/ letus, tomatoes, pickes, mustard and ketcup on a toasted bun w/ a giant stack of fries and a Pizza with nachos and salsa. Mmmmmmmmm!!!!

Top 10 List

Top 10 Movies Clint & Lynley enjoyed:

-Space Camp
-Goonies
-Short Circuit
-Empire Stricks Back: Star Wars
-The Last Star Fighter
-My Pet Monster
-Karate Kid
-Labyrinth
-Flight of the Navigator
-Little Monsters

Top 10 Fun Things Clint & Lynley did:
-Play Fort in the Woods
-Cutting Clint's hair
-Riding Bikes to Sneek Down to the Lake in the Woods
-Feeding Clint Poisin Berries
-Wrestling
-Playing Kitty Cat (included crawling around on the kitchen floor, meowing and eating cat food)
-Having battle with Barbie in Snake Mountain and Castle Grayskull...
-Clint and Matt Hendricks cutting Lynley's barbie's hair.

-Friday was our night to go to Wal-Mart.

-Durham Bulls games.

Top 10 Great Things Lynley & Clint Always Ate:

-Fruit Cake Cookies
-Cream Dried Beef on Toast
-Tuna Salad for lunch after church
-Bugles: put them on our fingers like claws
-Chicken Pot Pie: With the peas picked out.
-Chocolate Milk with 2 Chips-A-Hoy Cookies on the Lid
-Pap Paw Cookie (sometimes in Milk)
-"Culinary Delight" (cheese toast & Chicken Noodle Soup)
-Porcupine balls
-Alfalfa Sprout Sandwiches

I've gotta do what?

Holy cow! So I get this kit in Fedx from UCSF (thats the University of California San Francisco, that's where Clint's doctors are and where the surgery would be) Medical Center, Transplant Services (April 14th)with a list of the first big round of tests that I have coming up (oh and another little tube to put my blood in to send back Fedx to them, yuck!). I'm going to to scan it and attempt to post it on this blog for your viewing pleasure. I will basically be peeing in lots of cups, sharing lots of blood and having the most thorough physical examination of my life. If there is anything wrong with me, they are going to find it.

Guess me and Dr. Jackson are going to be busy...

On Tuesday (April 13th) the donor advocate calls me for my social worker evaluation (the last item on the list reference above, so I can mark that one off). It lasted 45 minutes where she asked me questions about bits of my social and education back ground, who was in my family, what I like to do for fun, etc... She asked me in 8 different ways if I was getting any kind of financial compensation for this or if I was made to feel guilty or pressured into doing this. They are very serious about your motives and they want to make sure that this was all your own idea. She was very sweet and I enjoyed talking to her.

She told me, that its a felony to sell vital organs in the U.S., I couldn't help but laugh when she said that. That does make a lot of since I guess.

So, today's lesson is, drink lots of water and don't sell body parts on the black market.

Q&A's

I had a lot of questions going into this. Here's some fun facts that I've learned and some questions that I had and a few others that I didn't think of before, but are important to know...

In February of 2007 there were 70,156 people in the United States on the kidney transplant list. More are added every day.

In 2006 15,722 people received a kidney transplant from a live or deceased donor.

Q. What are the requirements for being a kidney donor?
A. -Must be 18 years old.
-Have no major medical or psychiatric illness
-Not be pregnant or intend to be pregnant for at least one year post surgery
-Not overweight. You can still try if you can lose the weight.
-Don't smoke ( if you do you have to quite and not start back) or use illegal drugs.
-Understand the risks of surgery
*Having your own health insurance is very helpful but not required.

Q. Do I have to be related to the recipient?
A. No. It goes by blood type. A, B, AB, O... You can ask your doctor how to find out your blood type.
The Red Cross can tell if you go give blood, which is always good to do too.

20% of living transplant donors are not related to the recepient.

Q. Who pays for the testing leading up to the donation and the surgery?
A. The recepients insurance pays for the testing and surgery.

Q. How is the kidney removed?
A. Two ways. If everything checks out from the CT angiogram of your kidney, laparoscopic surgery is available. That way there is no large incision which makes recovery much easier. If needed they will make a larger incision which cuts muscle to take the kidney out, Ouch! This way makes for a rougher recovery, hurts longer, but no matter which way, the kidneys still come out all shiny and new!

Q. How long would I be in the hospital and what is recovery like?
A. A donor stays in the hospital about 3 days and can expect 4 to 6 weeks to feel totally normal again.

Q. Would I have to take medicine to maintain my health after surgery.
A. There are no meds to take, only continue living a healthy life style, have annual physical exams to check your blood pressure, blood and urine to make sure your remaining kidney is still in good working order. The only thing that I know of that is different, that a donor has shared with me, is that you can not take ibuprofen because it is processed through the kidneys. Just make sure that your doctor knows so that they can avoid giving you any other medicines and watch out for over the counter too for anything that may be processed through the kidney.

Q. Will there be a scar?
A. What do you think?

Q. Can you have a baby after donation?
A. Only if you're a girl. But yes, you need to wait one year after donation so that your body can be fully recovered from surgery and has adapted to the use of one kidney.

If anybody thinks of other questions let me know. I'd probably be great for me to find the answers to them if I haven't thought of it already!

What's next...

So one day I ask Clint, "Hey dude, do you want one of my kidneys?" and he said "Sure, I'll take it." About 2 weeks later I get this packet of bunches of papers in the mail, forms to fill out, waivers to sign, medical history to document, etc... I fill it all out, slap on the $2.75 postage and sent it in.

A super nice girl named Sarah calls me, its kind of funny with the time difference b/c when she called she was still sitting in her office and I was in the motions of getting my daughter to bed...
We went over what I sent her, everything checked out fine, then to step two.

The transplant team needed my blood in California so they could see if it would matched up with Clint's blood. I get this bigger packet in Fedx, in a giant plastic bag with 8 glass tubes to put my blood in packed in styerfoam boxes. I took the packet and a letter with instructions that the coordinator had written to the lab by the little hospital in my town. Took about 10 minutes, they got my blood in those tubes (it was dark like grape juice, very strange I thought) and I put it back in that Fedx package to go back overnight to California.

The nurse coordinator called one week later to tell me we were a match.

Next comes step 3: Lab & Diagnostic Testing...
1.) Blood samples to screen for medical diseases, hepatitis, etc...
2.) Blood & urine samples to see normal kidney function
3.) Electrocardiogram (EKG)
4.) Chest X-Ray
5.) Exercise stress test
6.) Echocardiogram

This does seem like a lot and there are still more tests to follow these (I'll get to those later). They are so very thourough, they even go as far a psychosocial and financial evaluation. They want to make sure that everything about you is well & secure enough to give.

These two links are to videos that discuss the reason's why a live donor is so great, personal stories of people who have had transplants, etc. They are each about 10 minutes long or so...

www.ucsfhealth.org/media/living_kidney_donor.swf

http://www.asts.org/reseacheducation/patienteducation.aspx

My first ever...

This is my first blogging experience ever, but in efforts to become a better writer, speller, communicator and to share this adventure here it goes...

I am setting up this blog for 3 reasons:
1.) To keep all who are interested informed of any news or progress,
2.) To keep an account so that I can remember this in the future and
3.) To be an information source to those who I do not know who may have questions about or are considering kidney donation themselves.


I am in the middle of the beginning stages of the kidney donation process so I will have follow up posts to talk about what I have already done in addition to what I am currently partisipating in.

Brief backgound:

In July of 2008 my brother, Clint went into renal failure and has used dialysis everyday since to maintain his health. I had always thought that if anyone I loved ever needed anything, ie. a functioning body part, that I wouldn't hesitate. When it happened in our family, I did hesitate, not because I didn't want to help but because I was afraid. I was afraid for Clint b/c a transplant is a serious operation and that is what he needs to have a better quality of life. I was afraid of the thought of giving a kidney b/c I did not know all the facts about how it would or would not change my life/health. But now I know the facts and I am not afraid. The fears that I had were b/c of my lack of knowledge of the medical facts and findings. Once I started doing my homework and receiving information from the transplant team, my fears were relieved.

This past Tuesday the donor team contacted me and said that my blood, which I sent to them via Fedx (how gross) last Monday (March 29th), had no reaction with Clint's blood that he provided on the same day. That is exactly what they were looking for. We can play good together sometimes!

So, what's next? More tests!

They gave me two options:
1.) I can come to San Fransico for 3 days and they will do ALL the tests there they need or
2.) they can mail me the information and a doctor here can help me complete the tests locally.

It would probably be very productive if I could go there for the test, have it done there at the facility where the surgery would be (and done exactly right the first time), meet the donor team, visit my brother in the Bay Area, etc... But for other reasons, going out there just may not be possible, so I have a back up plan. My wonderful OBGYN, Dr. Jackson, in Asheville knows about my goals and he has agreed to help me set up what ever I need.

Thank you for checking out this little blog and thank you all for your encouragment!