@hopefulgirl I wish you the best on your journey!
@rosemarya gave some helpful links on the process and we (and Mayo) can help fill in the blanks.
My answer to your timing question is maybe. My evaluation was Dec 12 & 13. I received the green light from the donor board a week later and donated Jan 12. It could have gone faster but for my family I needed to wait until after Jan 3. I had a recipient but don't know how much that factored in to timing.
If your evaluation is like mine, you will have a doctor at the beginning and end of your looooong days of appointments. He or 1 of the social worker nurses will be able to help you with timing.
If you started reading at the very beginning of this post, you'll see I'm very wordy and pretty much live blogged my way through this. I received so much helpful information and encouragement that I greatly appreciated coming from "real people". The staff at Mayo was wonderful every step of the way but it helped so much to hear from the non medical side.