Third appointment, head check and look ahead!

This morning in the post I received a couple of letters from the department of nuclear medicine at my local hospital,  The Royal Sussex County.  I’ve to call them to make appointments, first for my NM Glomerular Filtration Rate (GFR) Cr51 EDTA and my Renogram MAG3 examinations, which is all jolly exciting. Especially as only yesterday I was almost bemoaning the length everything was taking! From what I understand the GFR is likely to take around four and a bit hours and is all to assess how well my kidneys actually do work.  A small amount of a radioactive isotope is injected into a vein in my arm and then at regular intervals throughout the four hours they’ll take a sample of blood from my other arm which is then tested to see how much of the radioactive material (that‘s the Cr51 EDTA bit I think!), if any, is still there in my blood.

The other one, the renogram MAG3 starts off in a similar fashion, in that a radioactive isotope (the MAG3 bit) is injected into one of my veins, probably in the arm or the back of the hand then they give me a jolly good scan. Apparently I’ll probably be on the table or couch as they call it, for about twenty-five minutes, although sometimes they take delayed images of the kidneys,  so I might have a second scan, either way it will all take about an hour from start to finish, so not too long at all. This test evaluates the functioning of my kidneys as well as providing images of my kidneys inner bits and bobs so the doctors can make sure they are healthy and normal and both work fine enabling me function properly when one is snipped out!  

Rear view of the Royal Sussex

I know this sounds odd but I’m rather looking forward to these tests,  not because I have a freaky fascination with hospitals and medical procedures, as I really don’t, but because they are two very big steps to take on this road to donation.  There is still a long way to go yet but with each passing day and each passing test I feel more positive and energised about the (hopefully) eventual outcome, of me waking up after the surgery one kidney lighter.  This was made more apparent to me today as I had to visit the renal centre at the hospital to give another urine sample and have my blood pressure taken before a session with one of the counsellors to evaluate my psychological state of mind and make sure I'm going to be all right,  in the head, after the donation.  It took a bit of time,   there was quite a wait in the reception area before I saw the counsellor who lead me to the nurse who took my urine sample and cuffed my arm with one of those fancy electronic blood pressure machines or sphygmomanometer’s if you want to be precise,  I was a little high at 133 over 80 but then I had just cycled from home to the hospital (about six miles) and climbed two flights of stairs and of course there is always that slightly anxious sensation of having the test taken.  Although perhaps the fried egg sandwiches for breakfast weren't such a good idea!

The counselling session went better than expected, I felt so at ease and the counsellor was lovely, allowing me to waffle on and on for ages.  Together we explored my reasons for opting for altruistic donation, how ready I am for  all the possible difficulties that might arise as a result of donation, such as  infections, illnesses or even the very very remote one of death. None of which I am overly worried about,  the estimated odds of death during or as a result of the operation are 1 in 3000,  the same odds of getting struck by lightening and oh so much better than the odds of dying in a car crash,  which is a crazy 1 in 200!  We also went over possible anti-climactic feelings I might experience after the operation has been completed, which apparently are quite common and normal, however I think I'm prepared for that possibility by throwing myself in to helping raise awareness of altruistic organ donation as much as I conceivably can in any way I can.  Our session lasted over an hour and I'm sure we covered every single thing we needed to and loads more besides and I'm pretty sure I've passed this mental evaluation. I also learnt more about what life is like on dialysis and the differences after a successful transplant which made me more positive, if that were possible, about what I'm doing, to me this is not an amazing thing to do, it’s just the right thing to do!

Cycling on the way home after today's counselling session I stopped and took a few photos of a slight rough sea and clear yet cold sky.  I missed the sunset but I think I managed to capture the beauty of the twilight time!