The Eyes Have It...

Quick update.... The Kidney Transplant Coordinator at UCSF requested info from my eye doc, Peter Taylor of Family Eyecare Center in Campbell. He responded the same afternoon that I contacted him - How cool is that?

Dr. Taylor confirmed to them in a letter that my most recent eye exam showed no indicators of anything that would indicate kidney disease, or any kind of health problem. When I was at UCSF for my testing in January, one of the docs told me that the eyes are the windows to the kidneys. So this is a bit of very good news in my attempts to be confirmed as a donor for my friend.

My next two-day series of tests are confirmed for June 6th and 7th in SF, mostly at the Mt. Zion facility, I guess. So I have to ante up for a motel again - I found one that is not inexpensive, but it is less than two miles from the Mt. Zion hospital.

I'll write more after my testing.....

Back in the Race!

Oh Yes - I am back in the race again, after stopping out for a mechanical, to use cycling terminology.

Just got called by the UCSF Transplant Center Coordinator, and they are willing to continue my testing to become a donor for my friend. My lab tests showed such improvement that they are willing to continue. I have to schedule two days worth of testing, such as echocardiogram, a twenty-four hour blood pressure monitoring, twenty-four hour urine collection, and bring them the results of my latest eye exam. Specifically, what they want from the eye exam testing is to see that the blood vessels in my eyes showed no damage from blood pressure. As the doc I saw up there last time said, “ The eyes are the windows to the kidneys”.

So, here we go again, and I hope that my body tells them that I am healthy and ready to donate. Keep your fingers crossed for me!

One Small Step...

OK ... Keeping my fingers crossed once again. I spoke with my Transplant Coordinator two days ago. I told her that my lab results are greatly improved and asked if she would be willing to present it to the Transplant Team again. She immediately said she would, so I faxed her the three pages of lab work. It may be a week or two, or longer, before I hear back from UCSF...

So, once again, we are practically holding our collective breath and hanging on to hope. Since my testing, my friend has had one male donor whose blood test ruled him out immediately, one female donor who procrastinated so long on taking the first step of preliminary lab work that we finally realized that she did not want to participate and didn't seem to be able to say that to my friend.

Then another donor stepped forward, who immediately did his labs, and then got in an vehicle accident that perforated his spleen or something, and now he is out as a donor. And initially, my friend's sister went thru all the testing almost to the end when they found a problem with one of her kidneys, so she was ruled out, and that's when I stepped up... Whew ... what a long struggle, full of ups and downs of hope for my friend. Maybe this time we will succeed.