My brother and I went up to Guys on Thursday for our pre-op tests. We had more bloods taken, a urine test, a MRSA test, an ECG and our weight and height measured.
We also met with Guy's transplant co-ordinator and two other Donor's. My brother and I found this quite sad as one of the donors was giving his kidney to his 3 year old daughter. I was suddenly faced with the true magnitude of what we are doing. Myself and this stranger connected by our choice to save the lives of the people we love.
During this meeting they explained what would happen on the day of surgery. I will be admitted at 9am, the surgeon will come and see me and probably draw where he will make his incisions on my abdomen. At about 12:30 I will be taken to pre-op where they will administer the anesthetic, once under I will be given a catheter and taken into the theatre. The surgery will take about 3 hours. My brother will be brought down at about 1:30pm and the same will happen to him.
Once the surgery is complete we will be taken to recovery where we will be for about 3 hours, when we wake, we will have a few "attachments", as they call them, a catheter, a cannula in one hand connected to IV fluids and a cannula in the other hand connected to liquid morphine, which we can self-administer! Yipee!! My brother will have an extra attachment at his neck, near his collar bone. This is so they can administer drugs quickly should they need to, there was one other reason, but i forget. We will then be transferred to the ward.
24 hours after surgery, the catheters and self administered morphine drip will be removed and they will ask me to try and get out of bed and sit in a chair. The sooner I am up and about the quicker the healing process can begin. I will be in hospital for about 5 days, my brother will be there for 7-10 days. He will be receiving all kinds of anti-rejection meds and monitored closely for signs of rejection.
The next thing we need to do before surgery is meet the independent assessor from the Human Tissue Authority (HTA). They will interview us separately, they are making sure there is no coercion. We have to take our passport or driving license, our birth certificates and photo's of us together. Feels more like an immigration interview, making sure we are actually getting married out of love not a need to stay in the country!! However, I do understand why this has to be done.I just wasn't expecting it to be so indepth.
Only 9 days to go and I would be lying if I said I wasn't freaking out!!! The waiting is the hardest part, it's the suspense. Plus every TV programme I watch, surgery seems to crop up, even if the programme has nothing to do with surgery. I have a good network of friends and family around me that help keep me grounded and stop me from spinning out. There's a couple people missing from that network but I know that they are thinking of me and would be here if they could.
No comments:
Post a Comment