Teaching Session...

I went to the Teaching Session on March 21^st. As I had mentioned before, I did things out of order a little, as they wanted to see right away if I was a match for Craig.  The Teaching session goes through all of the steps of the process, some I had been through already. Mary and Brenda were very upfront and informative about the process as it went, so the Teaching Session was added information, stats, and likelihoods of things happening.

Some of the information was very encouraging; Recipients finding kidneys at 100% antibodies and are now living well. Better ability to find a match with living donors, kidneys lasting longer, healthier kidneys, and less chance of rejection with living donors. All very good news! Of course there are the down sides; first and foremost, not being able to find a match for the recipient. But, there are potential downsides for the donor as well. There is the possibility of finding out you have a health issue you were not aware of, and apparently some of the compatibility tests can predict paternity/maternity. Donors have found out, they were adopted or both of their parents were not their “biological” parents. Wow, what a way to find out!  Apparently this testing is part of the matching process and takes hours each time. It’s tested and re-tested to be sure. Some siblings will have no antigens in common, while others have 6 (best case). Strangers can also be genetically matched, as some antigens are very common. It’s a very interesting process! 

Then there are the antibodies. The recipients blood cannot have any antibodies against the donor’s blood. In some cases a mother cannot receive a kidney from a child, as she may have developed antibodies against him/her while pregnant. It’s odd that the mother would treat the baby as a foreign body, but I guess it is.

There are reasons a potential donor may be found ineligible; the anatomy of the kidney, or the anatomy of the other organs making it impossible to remove the kidney, health issues, etc. It basically has to be good for the donor and the recipient.  They will not sacrifice the one person’s health for another’s.

At this point, I am beginning Phase 2 of the process. I have completed Phase 1 and the test results are all in. So far, all is good. I have no diseases; infectious or otherwise, my heart is good, my kidneys are both there, my chest x-ray was fine, no lumps in the boobs (that shouldn’t be there), and basically everything is normal. I have my first Phase 2 appointment on April 5^th, the Renal scan. It will take approximately an hour. The only part of it that sounds… icky… is the “injection of radioactive tracers”. Eeeks.  It sounds like the Renal Scan is very interesting. I’ll write about that when the time comes. It’s going to test my overall kidney function. I was trying to find a picture of a renal scan, but I really wasn't sure what google was giving me, some were with Lasik, some were of someone with cancer, I didn't want to post something that was inaccurate... then I found this one. Uhhhh...??

I’ll get into the recovery and complications of the surgery later…. For now, I am going to concentrate on improving my fitness and eating as well as possible. I want to be a good candidate, and I want to heal well and quickly afterwards.  At the bottom of one of the pages, I had written, “6 weeks for the tissues to heal fully, and a few more weeks to build strength back up, “ which was a quote from Mary Rada. Underneath it I wrote, "Get Stronger Now!" These are pictures of me from about 5 years ago. Working towards this goal again will keep me busy while waiting for matches to be found.