For Canadian donors: How long did it take you to get a date for the surgery, from match to firm scheduling? We have a late winter/early spring timeline, but I need to start working out logistics ASAP, and we STILL have no firm date.
I will need to travel from the East coast to Ontario for the surgery, so I figure I'd better take someone with me to help me on the plane ride back. I will also need to book airline tickets ASAP, and inform my professors of the surgery date.
For all donors: how long should I wait after the surgery before I can (or should) fly home?
I'm not talking medically safe, the doctors will tell me that, I'm talking how long until I should be able to handle the 3-4 hour flight back to the East coast without ending up in the fetal position having muscle spasms and in extreme pain by the end of the flight? LOL I'm not a huge fan of pain, I dealt with 22 hours of hard labour with no pain meds when I had my daughter, so I can handle it if I have to, but I'd rather not. I know it won't be comfortable, but I'd rather it not be excruciating...I will be staying with my aunt (an ICU nurse) so I can stay as long as needed, hotel costs are not an issue...Also, will if I ask the doctors for something for the flight, what are the chances I'll get something that actually works? I'm not talking narcotics (I'm not a fan at all, I find they only make me tired but they don't take the edge off the pain at all - I dislocated my hip, broke an arm, and a couple of ribs back when I thought training green horses was fun - the combo of drowsiness and non-reduced pain is, I find, harder to cope with than the pain by itself), but something that will ensure that I can get up and walk off the plane, I'll be damned if my fiance (oh yeah! I got engaged too!!
) is going to carry me off the dang plane.
Anyway, other than that things are going pretty good. My recipient and I are both getting very excited for the impending transplant. We were hoping for Christmas, but hey, the kidney can be an Easter present instead. She (my recipient) has finished up her chemo for her cervical cancer (she developed this cancer because of all the immunosuppressants), and they feel that they have nipped it in the bud (she had the "cone" sugery, I'm sure that's not the proper name, but they took out the inner core of the cervix I guess) with the surgery and chemo. Her hair is starting to come back, it's kind of wispy, like baby hair. She isn't tolerating the dialysis very well anymore; they had to stop it early last week because her heart wasn't doing very well. Her blood pressure is all over the place but she is stable (relatively speaking) now; at least compared to her condition during the chemo regiment. She's a fighter and she just keeps on truckin', but she has moments where she wants to give up...this is the first time she has said those kinds of thoughts out loud, she's such a strong person, but even she can only take so much. That is why we were both hoping for a Christmas surgery, but alas it wasn't to be. Too many people in the chain I guess for it to get organized that quickly. I'm happy that 7 people (including my recipient) are going to get their kidneys, but I REALLY wish it wasn't holding up my recipient's transplant. She won't make it much past the summer, and it's the beginning of flu season...I just wish they'd hurry the heck up and schedule the darn thing before something bad happens. I am so worried that with all this good news (getting matched on the first cycle, having the histo-compatibility blood work checked and double checked and it all turning out fine, getting a tentative time line, my recipient's cancer being declared "in complete remission - NED", etc) that something terrible is about to happen. My recipient cannot handle another setback, and every day that goes by is like a timer counting down a bomb. Even if they would just give her a firm date, something definite to focus on....ugh....I know the doctors are doing all they can, but sometimes I get frustrated with this process...I can't help but wonder if they are working the surgery around their holiday schedules instead of the other way around...My father is an ER doc and Christmas or not he always goes when he gets paged...maybe I'm just being cynical now...or pessimistic....perhaps I just have a case of nerves? Whatever it is, this sense of impending disaster is throwing me off.....I can't even think of it...to get so close and then....ugh!
I've taken up indoor gardening to take my mind off all of the "what-ifs", I have some Meyer lemon, key lime, tangerine, pineapple, ginger, avocado and jade growing in my apartment now...smells like summer...the plants make for instant happy feelings, our winters on the East coast of Canada suck, all rain and cold, not much snow or sun, so it's nice to have a little break from winter when I get home.
Anyway, my post has gone from efficient, to long winded, to rambling in short order. Sorry for the length of the post.
Topic: Question for everyone, and one for Canadian donors specifically... (Read 5531 times)