kidneys, part 5

I had my CT scan on Monday, July 12th. It was pretty interesting, laying on a table, a donut-like machine making several passes over my middle. I also had to have an IV so that they could inject a contrast dye into my system. You really feel that as it goes in, a hot sensation from my neck down to my groin area - quite bizarre.

I met the surgeon shortly after that - a nice, Indian, Dr. Bhakta. One thing he mentioned that they have a difficult time with living donors, because their oath is "first, do no harm". So for a surgeon to operate on a perfectly healthy person, take out my kidney, which does not benefit me in the least - is totally against their principle of do no harm. An interesting conundrum.

The transplant nurse, Kami, went over all my test results, which were all good. I've been exposed to mono (which I had no idea), my cholesterol is somewhat elevated (208, not good) and I've been exposed to Herpes 2 (cold sores, which I knew). Other than that I am boringly healthy.

I will be approved for kidney donation next week when the doctor in charge returns from vacation and their group meets.

After that, we will set a date, probably the beginning of September. Then they will look for a recipient.

I posed the question to Kami - what if they have two acceptable recipients, both match me well and one is a 65 year old, retired person and other is a 20 year old just starting out in life with many years to go..... How do they resolve that ethical dilemma?

But the UWMC follows the United Network for Organ Sharing guidelines which means they take the person at the top of the list who most closely matches me, no matter the age.