On Monday we were at the clinic all day long, to do the final testing. I was completely amped up about it, of course, since it was The Day Before.
Cullen dropped me off at the clinic bright and early, and took the kids home to feed them and stuff before dropping them off. I left my purse in the car- this becomes important later. Right away I was seen, had another EKG and chest xray done, and was babysat by a sweet girl named Liz while doing so. She's from some research team, because i agreed to be researched to death (for Target gift cards, whoo hoo!!!). Anyway, it was nice having someone new to hang out with. She's pregnant with her first baby.
Then suddenly it was breakfast time. Which was great, but OOPS! No money, no purse and no Cullen yet. So I went to the hospital cafe and waited by the public elevators. I waited quite a while- like 45 minutes. People were coming and going, of course and at one point a woman kinda wandered over. She said hello and we made small talk. She had a soft southern accent. She asked if I was a student, and I said no, I was having surgery on Tuesday and was there for the pre op. She shared that her husband was the one they were there for. I told her I was donating a kidney Tueday.
She shared that her husband received a kidney 11 years ago from a transplant.
Out of ALL the people milling around the U of M. Even in the hospital...out of all the people, I got to talk to someone's whose hubby received a kidney.As it turns out, one of his anti rejection meds causes an increased risk for skin cancer, which he has had repeatedly, and the drs in OK wouldn't touch his meds, so they came back here. His tranplant was 11 years ago and she said he's never had an issue with the kidney, just the skin cancer. If I would have had my purse, I wouldn't have run into her.
We saw them again the transplant clinic.
I also saw what a recipients stomach looks like after surgery. WOW. They have some serious cuts going on there!!!!! I met a recipient of a double lung transplant also. Our bodies are so cool.
We met with the surgeons who were actually going to do the surgery, which was really cool. They were both very nice. One of them is 22 days younger than me- isn't that crazy? I can't remember anything they said because I'm fuzzy on details----
but the fun part was when Cheryl, the social worker came in and I met her for the first time, and she brought the surgeon with her. They were anxious....the surgeon explained to me that the 3rd donor in the chain of 4 was the "weak link" and they felt that that donor was either going to bail or had already. They gave me way too many options to choose from on what I wanted to do from there---either I could still have surgery Tuesday, to the original recipient, and there would be 2 surgeries that happened for sure....I could ask to be rematched immediately to someone from the "regular" list, I could say let's wait and ask to be rematched with someone from the paired exchange list if I wanted a bigger chain---!!!! My heart was breaking that whole time, wondering if Fargo knew what was going on, wondering if Fargo had been told that surgery might be on hold. Why the hell would I do anything other than have surgery on Tuesday!?! After they were done explaining everything to death, I looked at Cullen and told them that I trusted the chain that we have in place and that I wanted to have surgery tomorrow, and for my kidney to go to Fargo as originally planned. Cullen said he could feel them sigh a breath of relief and the surgeon said "that is what we would prefer, but I couldn't tell you that just then." They also mentioned that there was a small outside chance that the chain would end up LONGER than it was originally because there was something going on over at Abbott that would fill in the blanks and then some.
After that, we were set free for the evening. We went to mom's to see the kids and the emotional part of me was finally drained totally and completely. I went home to nap for awhile and Cullen gave my parents a break. He came back for me, brought me to moms to say goodnight to the kids and then took me to the lake for a walk, to help us relax. I was completely wowwed by the fact that it was the night before, and I could feel a little cry sneaking up.
MFN came to hang for a while, and when she left, I had literally a 30 second cry. Normally where this is concerned, I feel like people make it a bigger deal than it is, but for those 30 seconds, I really felt like "HOLY CROW! I'M DONATING MY *KIDNEY* TOMORROW!!!!" i could feel the full impact of what that meant for me, and for the recipient. It was really, truly a 30 second cry.
We went to bed late, both of us terrified that the alarm wouldn't go off on time. : ) Somehow, we slept.
And then the alarm went off.
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