Kidney transplant - The Journey from the Donor's Side

I will follow up after I've processed a bit, this has gone so quickly. I said I'd post from the hospital, I can't do that because I've already been released! My surgery was at 8 yesterday morning (Friday) and I was cleared to leave around noon today (Saturday). I had the option to stay tonight but my labs and "output" were good and there was no medical reason I needed to stay. The recipient is also doing well, she will be out Monday.
I'm going to eat & go back to bed, I'll fill in more details later

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@mauraacro, Amazing!
Your priority is to take care of yourself.

Gentle hug and prayers for you and your recipient, while you both recover.
Rosemary

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Officially accepted as a non directed donor this past Wednesday!!! Everything looks good for me health wise. I will be donating in may, as I'm a teacher and will be finishing out my spring as to not take too much time off of work for recovery.
They will be now doing their job to find a match and create a, hopefully, long string of paired donations starting with mine! I'm excited and really can't wait to see what God has in store for this process. Will post again as I get closer to surgery.
In the meantime, I'm working on a few diet changes- less salt intake especially!!!

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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!

Jump to this post

Officially accepted as a non directed donor this past Wednesday!!! Everything looks good for me health wise. I will be donating in may, as I'm a teacher and will be finishing out my spring as to not take too much time off of work for recovery.
They will be now doing their job to find a match and create a, hopefully, long string of paired donations starting with mine! I'm excited and really can't wait to see what God has in store for this process. Will post again as I get closer to surgery.
In the meantime, I'm working on a few diet changes- less salt intake especially!!!

Jump to this post

Officially accepted as a non directed donor this past Wednesday!!! Everything looks good for me health wise. I will be donating in may, as I'm a teacher and will be finishing out my spring as to not take too much time off of work for recovery.
They will be now doing their job to find a match and create a, hopefully, long string of paired donations starting with mine! I'm excited and really can't wait to see what God has in store for this process. Will post again as I get closer to surgery.
In the meantime, I'm working on a few diet changes- less salt intake especially!!!

Jump to this post

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!

Jump to this post

Officially accepted as a non directed donor this past Wednesday!!! Everything looks good for me health wise. I will be donating in may, as I'm a teacher and will be finishing out my spring as to not take too much time off of work for recovery.
They will be now doing their job to find a match and create a, hopefully, long string of paired donations starting with mine! I'm excited and really can't wait to see what God has in store for this process. Will post again as I get closer to surgery.
In the meantime, I'm working on a few diet changes- less salt intake especially!!!

Jump to this post

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!

Jump to this post

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!

Jump to this post