A week ago tomorrow, I opened a new chapter in my journey to become an organ donor for Anna. I went to visit my friend Jenny at the Pettygrove Classical Chinese Medicinary. I was excited to investigate a non-surgical side of the organ donation process and see exactly what it was like to have my tongue read. Yep – that is correct, for those of you that have never had acupuncture before, they read your tongue and your pulse. Before anyone reviewed my tongue though I had the most complete verbal evaluation of my life. I have never ever been asked so many questions about the frequency and color of my stool before. I am pretty shocked how interested these folks were in all that was happening in my body. I have to admit, I didn't even have all the answers. The doctor actually looked perplexed when I admitted that I sometimes get headaches, but couldn't tell him exactly where in my head the headaches reside. I'm trying to be more in tune with my body now though and am taking notes on my aches and pains so that I can present them with a more complete picture of my physical health when I go in for a needling at the end of the month. At the end of the day, they sent me home with some herbal tea stuff (My hubby, Scott thinks it smells like crushed bone) and they made an initial recommendation for me to consider releasing my left kidney in the donation process. Works for me.
Additionally, I got a very important phone call from the Seattle hospital where the procedure is going to happen. Scott and I learned late last week that we are the sole two remaining candidates for Anna's organ donation. We needed to get ourselves up to Seattle in short order for one final and very expensive blood test. It just so happened that I was already planning a birthday getaway up North this weekend, so Scott decided to join me last minute and Issabel got to go stay with my parents (and be in the Astoria Regatta Parade) for a long weekend.
I met up with Anna on Friday night after she completed her third round of dialysis for the week, said quick hellos to Rick and Drew (who is officially taller than I am now by the way), loaded up Anna and we headed North to Everett to stay with the O'Bryants for the weekend. The boys stayed in Renton and fished. They also fished on Saturday and they fished on Sunday, they fished in a car, they fished very far. ….Oh and I think they went skateboarding…good clean fun was had by all.
Our birthday celebration consisted of a lot of food and a lot of celebrity trash talk. I'm sworn to secrecy on most items but I can tell you that Anna has an embarrassing attraction to Jeremy Pivens – Hug it out girl!
Overall, we had a most excellent time and I'm already craving the annual birthday celebration next year. I love this single girls' weekend – of course we were missing half our posse this year, but I think our numbers will be up again in 2008.
When the weekend ended so did the fun. It was time to focus once again on the business of getting Anna a new, healthy kidney. The three of us (Scott, Anna, me) had to all go into the hospital for one group blood test. It is a genetic DHL matching test where they are looking for antigen matches with Anna's blood. In short, this is the test where we learn if her body would reject an organ from either of us. Apparently this is a very expensive test and they only do it once, so the donor pool is now closed. We also all had to give blood at the same time. Now I need to interject that I am TERRIFIED of needles and hospitals in general.
We were comparing notes over cheese omelets later that day and I learned that my man only had to give up five vials of blood where Anna had to give up eight vials. Me??? Yes, I had to give nine vials of blood. No rhyme or reason – someone is obviously messing with the freaked girl. Scott took pictures of the lab work, but they are on my new camera and I haven't figured out how to get them off just yet so stay tuned.
We should have the blood results back in about a week. From there things are going to go quickly – Anna could have a new kidney by Halloween and with any luck, it will be mine. I'll be sure to keep everyone updated.
I also learned that 33 (yes, I am 33 now) is a very lucky year in the Chinese culture - so here is to a little luck for the coming year
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