Potential Live Donor

I had a call this morning from Terry Seyler, one of my quilter friends who now lives in central Texas. She called to ask about being a live donor, saying that she's been praying and thinking about it for weeks. Everyone else that's volunteered has been ruled out, so this gives me hope again. She said she's type O blood, which is great because that matches me. She doesn't have diabetes, nor does it run in her family. Her mother is still alive, although her dad died of cancer about 7 or 8 years ago. I think it was liver cancer, but can't really remember. She said she will call Sue Weeks, UAMS live donor coordinator to start the process. Terry also said that she's on the national bone marrow donor list; that could mean she's passed a lot of the initial tests for being a donor. I hope so. Her call made me teary and grateful, like all these offers have done. The idea of someone offering to give me a second chance at life is so overwhelming that I cannot describe it in words, except to say thank you, thank you, thank you.

I also had a call today from Bruce Furbush, who volunteered to be tested but was told that, at age 65, he's too old to be a donor. Anyway, he called to find out how I was doing, and in that call he told me that he was surprised at the level of detail that the donor questionnaire went into. He said that there were some questions that he was not able to answer, and had no way of knowing the answer to. I asked him to give me an example of such a question. And he said "Well, one of the questions was for me to state how old YOU are. I told them that was a closely guarded national secret and I wasn't sure you would tell me even for a transplant."

Now the Waiting

It's been almost a week since I got my listing letter from UAMS. I have not yet heard from Baylor. I'll see Dr. Moulton on March 12, and I'll talk to him about getting listed at Barnes (St. Louis).

I feel OK most days, other days I feel unwell. That's the best way to describe it. Nothing specific feels wrong or bad, I just don't feel good, don't feel like I used to. Guess it's best described as malaise. Of course there are days when I feel nauseated, or get bad breath, then it goes away and I feel good again. So long as the good days come, I can live through the bad ones.

I had a message from Bruce Furbush, my friend in San Diego, CA. He said that he contacted Sue Turton Weeks, the living donor coordinator at UAMS and that she had sent him a long questionnaire. Then he said that he was told that he was too old. He's 65. But then he added that he "wasn't sure he would have gone through it if he had been accepted, but at least he gave it a shot." I think I would have been really sad if I knew he was a good candidate (I know we have the same blood type) but he simply decided not to go forward with it. Maybe it's just as well he was ruled out. So, that's 7 people who expressed an interest, and all have been ruled out. The waiting continues, until I can get a transplant.

We are meeting Ronnie and Gail Lane for dinner tonight.We're going to the Corner Cafe, which serves prime rib on Friday night), and we loved going there with them before all this happened. We'd have prime rib and a couple of glasses of red wine. Now they've moved away to Colorado (there here just this weekend) and I've gotten too sick to enjoy prime rib. But it will be good to see them again.

I spoke to my brother Felipe last night. He asked me about my dialysis port, and was surprised that it was not like dad's access port (fistula) in his arm. When I described how peritoneal dialysis works, he said it sounded really scary. If it's scary to hear about, think how scary it feels to be facing it!