The Blood Work Results are In...

I got a call today from the hospital about the results of my blood and urine tests. They said everything looked good, there was nothing there that would prevent me from donating. They did mention my bad cholesterol was a little high (a result of my not great diet, something I’m trying to work on), and the level of creatinine in my urine was a bit high. I had to look creatinine up, it’s apparently a normal waste product from your muscles. They asked if I had done any strenuous exercise recently, and 2 days before I did my 24 hour urine collection, I did pretty much a full day of scuba diving, which left me very sore the next couple of days. They said that wasn’t an issue, but I need to do another 24 hour urine collection, unfortunately, just to make sure that was the reason for all the creatinine.

The hospital also discussed the next steps with me. I’ll need to actually go in to the hospital to do more tests, instead of doing them remotely like I had before. But, these tests could potentially be the last round of tests before they approve me as a donor if everything still looks good. These tests will need to be done over 2 days, so I’ll have to make the drive there to do the tests. I’ve spoken with my boss and some of my coworkers, and thankfully everyone is being very supportive of this process, so I can take the days off I need to do the tests.

Over those 2 days, I will be doing the following:

• More blood work
• An EKG (electrocardiogram)
• A chest X-ray
• Meeting with donor coordinators
• Meeting with the social worker
• Attend a donor information session
• Meeting with Transplant Psychology (because I don’t know the recipient personally)
• See a nephrologist (kidney doctor)
• Meet with the Transplant Infectious Disease team (because I’ve spent more than 2 consecutive weeks outside of the US)
• Have a CTA/CT scan done
• And more blood work

It’s going to be a busy few days. All this is scheduled for next week, so it’s all happening very fast.

After all that’s done, I’ll hear back from the hospital within a couple of weeks of those tests. If no additional testing is needed and everything looks good, they will approve me as a donor. The next step after that is working with the recipient to set a date for surgery.

I’ll make sure to update here next week on how my tests are going.