This Gets Real

There are several thoughts going through my mind right now as in how much to say about all the physical testing a person must go through in order to donate a kidney. It is a lot. This whole process of donating a kidney does some potential harm to a person, so the medical world has to make sure that the donor will be okay. They also have to know for sure that the donor is perfectly healthy and that the kidney will be healthy. For instance if the donor has cancer, the cancer can pass to the recipient.

There are other blogs that detail this in great detail.  It seems to be universal that the process is long and that transplant teams are somewhat disorganized. I don't know why this is and cannot even venture a theory about it.

I did not journal all my testing. I do remember it in that "just get through it" kind of a memory way. I think it took me at least three or four days, total, to do the testing (not counting all the blood draws) but it happened over a longer period of time.
I gave them lots of blood and urine. Every time I have gone to do a blood test, and there have been at least two do-overs of big tests, there have been back ups, delays and lots of major and minor annoyances. I cannot explain why the hospital where I do my testing does not do a better job of keeping my records in their system(we have re-entered them at least three somewhat painful times) or employing pleasant folks at the front desk. The last time I was there, which is in the double digits now of the number of times this woman has seen me, seen my name etc, she actually sort of, not full on, smiled at me.  I guess I have to think that I am lucky that I am the type of person that can smile when absolutely necessary. 
During all of this, I did receive a free (despite the endless billing) chest x-ray, an EKG, a pap smear, a mammogram and a CAT scan of my kidneys. The worst test, IMHO, was the one where you drink some type of a radioactive substance and in my case, have to take two two hour breaks, I think one was a three hour break...which involved walking around on the Colfax corridor (a totally different hospital where I got to pay to park because I parked in the wrong place) with a buff cap in my arm. (You do not have to go walk around, if you are normally sane, you would just stay in the air conditioned comfort of the hospital and read.)

 Of course I made best friends with the phlebotomists, (Arnold, my intended recipient has mentioned many times how much the phlebotomist likes me) various homeless people (on that Colfax day), and one of the nurses at the transplant center through all of this testing.

To sum it up, its not that bad, and in my case, nothing was wrong with me, but if there was, they would have found it, which can be a very good thing.

And it is not one iota as bad as being a person who is living with dialysis.  NOT EVEN CLOSE!