That's a total bummer...
Pete the Skunkman
----- Original Message ----
From: "Take a wild, friggin guess" <a_change_of_plans_at_yahoo.com>
To: SkunkworksAMA_at_yahoogroups.com
Sent: Tuesday, November 6, 2007 10:14:03 PM
Subject: [SkunkworksAMA] Or not... :(
Well, so much for that. But I guess shit like this should be
expected, so I'll just wait until the next call. :(
I'd gotten a call from SLU at 10:15 last night, and was admittedly
quite shocked that they had found a compatible donor so fast (I've
been on the transplant list since October 16. That's only about three
weeks!). I had to quickly get all my shit packed and prepped, and
then make a few quick calls, say my goodbyes, and then get driven to
the hospital, which is about 250 miles away. Needless to say, we did
not obey the posted speed limits.
Went into the emergency entrance and had to get the arm band and
paperwork stuff taken care of. One tech brought me to a room where
they took chest X-rays (I'm not sure what for, since they're replacing
the kidneys and pancreas, but whatever). Then another tech drew what
must've been half the fucking blood in my body, and set the vials up
for additional tissue and sample matching.
They did a few other things, and had brought me to a room where I
would assume they would start actually prepping me for surgery (I was
scheduled for an 8am surgery). Then the tech got a call, and the
whole thing had to be called off.
It seems the donor, while an excellent match for me, actually had a
problem with his/her pancreas. The doc who had removed the donor's
pancreas had stated it was not any good, and the surgery would have to
be cancelled.
So we drove all the way back home, where I promptly passed out and
finally got some much needed sleep. The last technician I spoke to
said this kind of thing happens sometimes; you never know how the
donor's organs are going to be until you can actually get them out to
look at them. I said it was no problem. There'll be another donor
popping up sometime in the future, so I'll just have to wait.
So there you go. I haven't read any messages yet, but I'm hoping no
one freaked out or anything. I just wanted to make a quick post
before leaving so folks would know why I wasn't online or anything.
So...I guess it's back to business as usual now. But I will make
sure I have a suitcase already packed up and ready to go so that next
time, I won't have to run around like a maniac trying to get
everything together. The whole thing caught me off-guard because I
really did not expect a phone call that soon. I'd figured maybe
sometime in March or something, but with this shit, I guess you never
know. The usual waiting time, according to the letter I received
about the transplant listing, is 18-24 months. That was what I was
expecting, not 3 weeks.
Hopefully, we can all settle back into the casual grind again. (I
was a little ticked when I realized I wouldn't be able to draw the
winning poll picture. Funny how technically unimportant stuff pops up
like that).
Now I need to play catch-up with the group messages and help slow
everything back down again...
--JMH, still in one piece.
Received on Tue Nov 06 2007 - 22:47:16 CST