Long day - lots happening

Today has been hectic and I am pretty tired.

First update as I have not done a proper update since last wednesday. Things are mostly fine with plasma and dialysis. In Friday one of the nurses accidentally managed to prick herself when taking one of the needles out, this caused a bit of confusion as what the protocol is. It turns out that we both have to have our bloods checked for viruses. I am pretty confident that I am fine as I am screened regularly, they did a viral screen on Saturday and again today. These things happen...

Friday eve and Sat morning was suffering from a bad stomach. This is not like the normal stomach pains - it is hugely chemical drugs based and unpleasant. It seems to go as quick as it comes though

My dialysis session on Sunday was changed to Saturday twighlight as the sunday staff wanted to go to a leaving party. This was fine although it did mean we had to run plasm a little slower today as I have more creatinine in mm blood.

Otherwise the end of week and weekend has been fine. I went orienteering on Saturday - basically 1 hour of running around trying to find hidden points using a map and compass. I could not manage to run the whole thing - but had fine and got some fresh air.

Today

Plasma was fine - ran slower due to dialysis on sat and not sunday. HB dropped again to 10.3. Spoke to doctor later in the day and he agreed to increase eypo to 60 from 20. This will take a while to work.

Met with the surgical team as well. They impressed me, one of the top uk surgeon is doing my transplant which is great. Due to the treatment the date of the transplant could be 28th of this month but it could also be after that. The surgeon said they may even have to come in on a saturday. I responded that means I have also put off what I am doing and come in on a saturday "that caused much laughter"

He asked me questions and considered my past history. He shook his head a bit and decided that I needed a full scan of my arteries and veins around my stomach and legs to decided which is the best place for the kidney. He thinks he will take out the current kidney that failed and replace with the new one.

He also said as I have basically not passed urine for 18 months my bladder would have shrunk. I have to go and my bladder stretched before the operation. This makes my eyes water thinking about it, basically a tube up the private part into the bladder. Water then pushed in and drained out. This will cause it to stretch and hopefully be better for the surgery and the kidney afterwards. Will reduce the build up of pressure.

I then had to go to see a ethics person with my family to prove we were related etc. All pretty simple stuff. A bit more paperwork...

They managed to fast track the renal scan, so had this done in the afternoon. Took about 30 mins, the guy was very informative. I hate echos and that whooshing sound. Anyway from what he said it seems that I have very good arteries and veins. Like a normal person. That is good. Did you know the more movement you do the better it is for you veins and arteries.

They review todays cross matching on Wednesday. This will probably give us a good idea about the potential of the transplant happening next Friday.