Back in December when I first found out my transplanted kidney had failed, one of the first things I did was let all of my friends and family know what was going on. I told them that I was starting dialysis and the only “cure” was another kidney transplant. The number of people who said they wanted to donate overwhelmed me. At times, I was left almost speechless. Organ donation is clearly one of the most selfless things a person can do, but it’s not like donating old clothes to charity. It’s real, knocked-out cold surgery that always carries risks. But about half a dozen people volunteered to donate and took the steps to follow through. Out of those people, my transplant center tested for the best available match through a process of blood and physical testing.
Once the best match was selected, she had to go through medical testing to make sure she was a good surgical candidate and of course, to make sure her kidneys were working properly. There was one little hitch in her workup that meant she had to wait three months and have the test redone. That was at the end of May, so she’ll be getting tested sometime at the end of August or beginning of September. If that test is normal, they’ll schedule the surgery.
I’ve been doing really fine on dialysis. It’s certainly a pain in the butt (figuratively, not literally), but I feel pretty good, which is a lot more than many dialysis patients can say. But I’ve got to admit, I’m really wishing we could get this thing done.
It’s not so much that things are bad the way they are now. Giving up a few hours, three days a week isn’t ideal but it isn’t horrible. I have to be on a diet that pretty much eliminates all foods that have flavor but come on, these days which of us isn’t on some form of that diet? The hardest thing about all of this is the waiting.
And waiting.
I’ve always been a bad at waiting. When I want something, I want it now and can’t and don’t want to wait to get it. When I was a kid I couldn’t wait for my birthday to get my present. I would scour all the hiding places in the house until I found it just for the satisfaction of knowing what it would be. I really haven’t changed in that regard. Now, waiting for my transplant is like waiting for that cool new toy. Plus, since I’ve known I was going to need a transplant it always seemed like it was just around the corner. First I had to schedule my testing at the transplant center. I was hoping that I’d go in, everything would be peachy, and they’d give me the go ahead. My transplant coordinator told me that almost never happens. Still, I hoped and thought that it was going to happen for me. After three days of being poked, prodded, and peered at, my coordinator said everything looked pretty good. The problem was, she doesn’t make the decision. The transplant docs do, and after going over my results they had just one little thing that needing checking. After that turned out to be nothing that would threaten the surgery, they wanted one more thing investigated, and so on and so forth. The whole time I was thinking they’re going to find this was really nothing and then they’ll schedule the transplant. Then, once I was cleared it was a similar situation for my donor.
Would I have been happier if they told me right off the bat the transplant wouldn’t take place for at least nine months? I really don’t know. The anticipation of having it done in the immediate future kept me going and kept my spirits up. Then again, having it constantly pushed back gets old really fast.
It’s been good that the weather has been nice for the last few months. Being cooped up in the house filled with anticipation makes it tougher still. Cabin fever is bad enough but it’s worse when you’ve got that carrot dangling in front of you because as many steps as you take forward, it keeps moving further away. And now that I think about it, when I found out at the end of May that it was going to be another three months until we knew anything, I did feel better in a way. At least I knew it wasn’t happening for a finite amount of time and it allowed me to enjoy my time a bit more. It’s actually been a really good summer!
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