I’m sitting in the basement of the Tom Baker Cancer Centre, waiting for a doctor to come available. Everything is done for the day except the final transplant confirmation. So far today, I’ve:
- Given 3 vials of blood for final type checking
- Had an ECG
- Had a chest X-Ray
- Gone through my medical history for the 4th time.
- Been poked and prodded, vitals taken and the usual checkup stuff.
- Driven to Canadian Blood Services and give 8 more vials of blood for infectious disease testing (They need samples from within 30 days of donation).
- Bought a printer that works with my Macs. Just to kill time.
- Listened to 4 descriptions of the process and signed many waivers and forms (They want to be SURE you got it).
Everyone has been very nice and VERY appreciative of the donation.
Honestly though, I’m a bit worried about how much it will hurt after and I really don’t like general anasthetics, but what can you do — better than an epidural (spinal block? All spelling of medical terms is highly questionable).
Niggly little (normal) fears aside, I’m kind of excited and proud that I can do this.
It’s all very cool.
(Note: If you caught the date of the procedure, good for you, but I had to remove it due to confidentiality rules. Since there aren’t many transplants done on a given day, someone COULD work backwards and find out who the donor was. So I’ve agreed to no interviews, and I assume nothing so public as a web site. Sorry, I’ll need to be a little more tight lipped about it.)