The Countdown

I/we now have an official R.A.H. schedule of appointments leading to my kidney transplant

Donor and Recipient Pre Transplant Appointments
Robert Bleckly (recipient ) and Felicity (Donor )

Date of Transplant: 19th May 2010

I'm pleased to see they got the give 'n' take the right way round - that's a good sign - we've just done the first item - the final cross match.

The rest of the schedule looks like this:

This is the scary part of the journey especially the last two items, I would much rather get my drama vicariously from an altogether different theater - where I'm in the audience and someone else is in the spotlight upon the stage


But since I believe, and believe in, my doctors this is the best choice I can make. I am in fact extremely fortunate to have this option.

1. I have a partner willing to donate.
2. said partner is compatible, and
3. passed their rigorous set of tests (any failure would have put paid to the deal.)
   

If all goes well I will then the proud bearer of my wife's kidney a curious reversal of the usual transaction between husband and wife only I wont be giving birth, I'll be carry her donation for life.

The operation is, as they say, routine but not trivial. Hell, no operation is trivial, accidents happen, complications arise, people die. Not that I'm scared of death. If I don't wake up I'm not going to know about it. The scary bit is everything in between death and the best outcome.

Things like, losing Felicity, rejection leading to dialysis, one or other of us being permanently incapacitated or left in pain.

It will be especially hurtful if Felicity has anything other than a full recovery because she doesn't have to do this. I do and I cant do it without her but what it might do to her really scares me.

My next post will post operation or post mortem.

On the Cusp

Yesterday the bad news.

The remaining functionality of my single kidney has dropped 3% in the last 4 weeks from 15% to 12%. The sudden drop seems to be a feature of my progressively failing kidney. It has been stable at 15%-16% for the last six months after a drop from 23% with the removal of other kidney.

I haven't felt any change. My appetite, weight, and blood pressure are all good. Every visit to the specialist which showed no change in the blood work encouraged an optimistic view; that the daily cocktail of drugs had halted the decline, that this benignly stable state could go on indefinitely.

Yesterday was a wake up call

For starters, I'm six months older. That might not seem like much but it shortens the window of opportunity in which have a transplant from seven and a half years to six. At my age every month counts. Then again maybe that's my particularly dire circumstances talking. 10% kidney function is the cutoff point (transplant, dialysis or death follows) and I just dropped 3% to 12% in 4 weeks. It may stabilize again but I wouldn't count on it. It is more likely I'll be under the knife sometime soon.

There is sense of urgency now that wasn't there before. My next appointment with the skin specialist to check the treatment I had for Bowen's disease has been brought forward from March to this afternoon. The treated ear has been a problem ever since treatment; it itches, feels hot and can't strand the sun. I can sense it now in a way I never could before and can't for the untreated ear.

This could be because the treatment spurs on the immune system to heal the disease. (one reason why the treatment has to be finished before transplant because transplant requires the suppression of the immune system). Equally it could be that I can feel it because I know I have it. In the same vein, yesterday's startling drop in function convinced me I could feel the pain in my kidney.

So here's fate that's worse than death - contemplating it. Young healthy people never give it a thought.

Under the Knife

In a couple of days (Thursday 1st of February) I go 'under the knife', a title I borrowed from an HG Wells story which begins "What if I die under it? ..." This unwelcome thought has crossed my mind too.

Death is such a waste of life.

My cutting is to remove a kidney that according to a bevy of specialist has a not-so-benign growth attached to it. They call it a tumour, a Renal Cell Carcinoma, RCC for sort; CANCER. It is oft said that Cancer is just a word, not a sentence; this I thought a fine pun until they applied the word to me.

I been told that RCC is not amenable to chemo or radiation therapies, the only treatment seems to be removal of the kidney before it metastasises (spreads beyond the kidney). Removal is supposed to be a complete and permanent cure. Notice how cleverly I couched the above - 'I've been told ...' , '...seems to be...', '...supposed to be..' Nothing is certain.

The real problem is this: no one can tell me at what point it metastasises. The last test I had, showed it hadn't. Left alone, some time in the future it probably will. So the sooner it comes out the better, however, it's possible it could metastasise in the period between the last test and when I go under the knife. What then?

Well that's just bad luck, or god's will, which ever you prefer. Not that I'm scared of the actual dying only of leaving an unfinished life.