best way to finalize donation?

[b94new]

i am new to the living kidney donation world. i found someone out of state that i had started a "paired donation" with (early stages of testing). i think i've kind of been put on hold as someone seems to have stepped forward that is a possible direct donation. my question is...since finding another board (matchingdonors.com) and seeing that i can actually possibly make a direct match myself with someone more "local"...how do i best go about on a path to donation? do potential donors actually test for more than one person at a time? the process seems to take so long...i actually callled the center after my first round of blood and urine testing because no one got back to me in three weeks...only to find iout they never received a certain fax from me. frustrating to say the least because i'm left wondering why they hadn't called ME. meanwhile...said potential recipient is getting closer and closer to dialysis. what is a normal amount of time for all this to come together?  :o

[JulieSHull]

It can take a long time. I found that I really had to push the process. I first contacted the donor coordinator at the end of January, did my 24-hour urine test at the end of March, and didn't have my full round of testing until early May. If you don't hear from them, call. Sometimes they let the process lag because they want to make sure donors have really had time to think about their decision.