I'm sure I've forgotten some of the things but I'll try to go in order of how it went for me and maybe it will jog my memory as I go.
In October, I signed up on the breeze Mayo site to test as a donor for a named recipient. I was contacted by someone within a few days and she asked various questions about my health and health history. She said if I got things like my colonoscopy, mammogram and pap out of the way, things would go faster, so I had those done. I received a blood lab kit in the mail, my doctor did the draw and I shipped it to Mayo.
I didn't match on all of the things that can match but she had no antibodies that would reject my kidney so I passed that part. I think I was shipped 2 more blood draw labs and a 24 hour urine collection kit that I did here and shipped back.
The scheduling nurse set up my appointments at Mayo, I still can't believe how organized and well run it is. I got there at 6AM on December 12th for blood and urine testing and needed to go back for 3 more of those throughout the 1st day. I met with the nephrologist, received an 18 hour blood pressure cuff, had a renal function test, met the surgeon, the donor advocate, financial services and the donor coordinator,
The second day I had a CT scan, got the results of the BP cuff, met with the social worker and a nutritionist, had an electrocardiogram and a stress test, more blood draws, a chest xray and finally back to the doctor for the results. I was asleep in his office in the 4 minutes it took him to come in to see me. We went over my results and he said he would recommend me to the donor board as a candidate.
After I got home, I received calls from the advocate and the social worker. They were checking and and seeing how I was doing and if I was still interested after I had some down time. A few days later I got the call that I was accepted and we talked about a good date for my schedule. The recipient's side does the surgery scheduling and they called me that day with confirmation.
I've since had 1 more blood draw that I shipped to Mayo but I think that's all I have left to do here besides pack and fill out paperwork. So far, for my pre-op in Rochester, I have 2 more blood and urine tests scheduled as well as appointments with the doctor, surgeon and advocate.
If I could do anything different, I would eat more (or better) when I wasn't fasting and get to bed earlier because it was hard to sleep with anticipation for the tests. I had a paper schedule and made notes on it that said things like, "fast after 7, 1 cup of water between 12-5. Eat between 9-945. 2 hour fast for test at 11:45" that was invaluable because there were a lot of eat/don't eat on my instructions. I got to some appointments as much as an hour early and sometimes they were able to take me and sometimes not. I think I would have felt more rested if I had, well, rested during those times instead of trying to beat the clock. I learned that the elevators in the Charlton building are super slow but the volunteer on the lower level is a font of Rochester information.
This was probably way more than you meant for me to reply with but it was nice to get it out!