Today is the day prior to the First Mate's transplant, and we are spending most of the day at the Fairview University Medical Center's Transplant Unit, talking with the surgeons and nurses who will be involved in the surgery tomorrow. Once again your intrepid Captain has found a way to hijack a network connection in order to maintain a little bit of sanity during the waiting periods between conferences.

The First Mate's tests all check out good, as did the donor's; she's on her way home now, but we still have a few tests to go. We've met with the primary surgeon, nephrologists, nurses, and we're waiting on the anaesthesiologists now. The FM and I will head home about mid-afternoon, it appears, and show up at 5:30 AM tomorrow morning to prep for the surgery itself. I'll be posting more as the day goes on, but right now it all looks pretty good.

Fingers crossed, this time tomorrow we will be watching both donor and recipient recover from successful surgeries!

UPDATE: Well, we're still on track, but only after we almost ran into a roadblock this afternoon. Shortly after posting the above, we met with the nephrologist that will handle the FM after the surgery, at least at the hospital. He almost single-handedly derailed the entire process by recommending that because of her TIA last week, her transplant should be postponed until a definite cause could be determined. This came after everyone else involved had already reviewed her test results and decided that the surgery provided no elevated risk for another attack, and that waiting might be more of a risk. I wanted to scream, "WHY DIDN'T YOU TELL US THIS LAST WEEK?", but instead just acknowledged that he was trying to act in her best interests.

Anyway, after all of the other doctors consulted with him over the next 90 minutes, he finally signed off on the surgery after making a minor alteration to the FM's schedule. Instead of waiting a couple of days to remove the dialysis shunt, they'll remove it just prior to the surgery tomorrow to minimize the chance that clotting around the shunt will cause another TIA to appear. Right now, the FM is back home prepping for tomorrow; we'll be getting up around 3:30 AM for the 5:30 arrival time at the hospital.

Thanks for all your prayers and best wishes. I read your comments to the FM and she's amazed how much support she gets from the blog. I'm humbled, but not surprised. I know how great all of you are.

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Tracked on June 7, 2004 9:04 PM