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Anxiety on what to do with my luggage when arriving for a transplant.

Posted by tony102256 @tony102256, Oct 2 4:30pm

I am a pre liver transplant living outside of AZ and will require a plane flight when I am called. I have 2 questions:
1) When my caretaker and I get to Mayo is there a place to keep our luggage? Or is there a large window of time between arrival and the operation for my caretaker to go and drop off the luggage at the place we are staying?
2) How long does the liver transplant operation take? An average without complications.

Thanks for your helpful information
Kind regards
Tony

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tony102256 | @tony102256 | Oct 4 7:17pm
In reply to @kim1965 "Hi @tony102256 My wife had her surgery in Milwaukee, WI at Froedtert Hospital this past January...." + (show)
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Hi @tony102256
My wife had her surgery in Milwaukee, WI at Froedtert Hospital this past January. Our circumstances were different than yours needing to get to Mayo by plane once you got the call. We were given only 5 hours (we lived 1 hr from hospital) to get to the hospital, as donor liver was from an individual that had been on life support. As craigcraig mentioned in our pretraining the "gobag" was highly recommended to be ready to go. Regarding your questions, 1. I was taken to Family Center where we could get texts on the update during my wife's surgery. I kept the gobag by me until the surgery was completed. 2. My wife's surgery took about 4.5 hours, with no complications till later in the week after the surgery, but the transplant went as planned. We were told about 4-6 hours depending how everything goes at each step. As Colleen mentioned, we are all here to help you Tony. Please let us know what other questions you may have. You got this, we got you!

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@kim1965
Thanks, good information, my wife and I are getting our go-bag together today. I will keep in touch with any further questions.

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craigcraig | @craigcraig | Oct 4 7:30pm

Hi Tony. I also had a dry run. Mine was about 1 month before the actual call. There were 6 Mayo liver transplant patients at the same hotel in Phx from the same insurance company. Five men one woman. The 5 caregiver wives and the one woman patient would sit out at the pool after dark (when it was cooler ) and share what was going on. If I recall all 6 had either a dry run or a false alarm. Most around a month or two before the actual call. Most of the gals (5 out of 6) are still on a group chat with each other a year and a half later. And while there are still a few issues all but one , 4 out of 5, are doing well.
Stressful now but well worth it (---:

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pjrace | @pjrace | Oct 4 8:14pm

I am with Kaiser and my plan covered all flight and all lodging. The phone number is 480-609-1324 and they also have a website. My hope going in was that we would meet people in similar situations, it’s exactly what happened. There are six rooms per casita, 1 large living room with a sitting area and two couches to relax and watch the big screen tv, a large kitchen with 2 ovens, two stove, 2 refrigerators, two microwaves, 2 dishwashers and all the equipment you would need for a meal. Plus your own lockable pantry. There is also a large community room in the middle of the facility with the same type of kitchen so you can have your whole family over for dinner. You also have your own post office box if you forward mail as we did. Very peaceful and great views of the sunset every night. The staff is also very helpfully. You are only a mile or so from N Scottsdale blvd where you will find some of the best restaurants in and shopping in the country. Lots to do in Scottsdale. Let me know if you have anymore questions.

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tiabean | @tiabean | 1 day ago

The beautiful folks at MT transplant center took my baggage. Took care of my mom. I just had to worry about me. Don't fret too much. They take good care of you. They know about our worries before we worry about them.

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