Remainder of Phase 1 Testing

This week I had begun to feel a little nervousness, I think because the weeks are winding down until the next National Cross match for the paired program. I'm not nervous for me, I'm sure thousands of people have life saving surgery every day, and me, well, I'm just going in and coming out a tiny bit lighter, life not needing to be saved. Maybe I will be nervous about the surgery when the time comes, but I do hope it is sooner than later.

At the teaching session yesterday, Brenda mentioned to me again that we may not make it in time for May, so I told her to go ahead and book the Phase 2 appointments and just tell me where to be and when! It's not a big deal to do a little extra driving or go into the hospital more than a couple of times. They try to block them all together, but if it's faster to make multiple trips, than that's fine with me.

My day started with picking up the requisitions on the 5th floor, then off I go to the Main level to the lab. Yesterday's blood work was a form of DNA test, checking the antigens, Non-infectious diseases and infectious diseases (Hep B and C, HIV, HTLV, Syphilis) and of course chicken pox. If this is transferred through the kidney, it could be fatal to the recipient. Not much point in that happening!

Then off to the xray department for a quick two panel chest xray, and then on to the Cardiology department for an ECG. None of these tests were the least bit invasive, and the only one that took any amount of time was the blood work, but all tolled, I was finished in less than two hours. I was worried I would have to do some of them after the Teaching Session, but Phew, no worries.

As you can probably tell, I stopped asking permission to take pictures! lol I only posted a part of this photo, because Lord knows what kind of information is on the screen and I had a hard time seeing it after the photo was taken. The technicians were all nice enough, but I figure if I plead ignorance, it's easier... "Easier to beg forgiveness than to ask permission".

The Teaching Session was very interesting. It was odd that it was only women, but apparently they have had men come out to them as well. As a side note, there was a woman there who had lived the first part of her life in Tanzania, and I was really wishing I had my camera. She was very nice, so I assumed that she may let me take a picture. Her hands were beautiful! (I love to photograph hands).

Instead of making a very long post, I'll explain the Teaching Session later.  So far, Phase 1 has consisted of;

• Questionaire
• Consents
• Height, weight and blood pressure on both arms
• Teaching session
• Screening of blood and urine (blood three different times... maybe 4)
• 2 x 24 hour urine collection
• Letter to family MD - which resulted in pap, breast exam, mammogram and TB test
• Tissue typing and Crossmatch (which we did first because it was for a known patient - Craig)
• ECG and Chest X-ray
• Abdominal Ultrasound

It sounds like a lot, but it didn't take very much time at all. I was surprised at how quickly my tests were booked. The only results I'm waiting for now are the last blood work, x-ray and ecg, everything else was good.