More awesome news and prayers needed for friends!!!

YIPPPPPPPPEEEEEEEE!

Our donor Candy called me on Wednesday afternoon to let me know the Pretransplant Committee OFFICIALLY approved the transplant! I can't tell you how excited I was to hear this news! I pretty much knew it was going to be approved so it wasn't a total shock, but something about hearing that it was OFFICIAL just clicked in my head. I hung up the phone, told Neil, sent out a text message to some friends and family, told the boys, then sat down and cried. My middle child (8 yrs old) asked me why I was crying. I told him they were happy tears because I was so relieved to FINALLY hear it's official!!!! The sigh of relief was a years worth of worry. Even now that I'm writing about it, I get the chills just thinking of what has happened and what is to come. Our donor is so wonderful and our angel. She is giving us the best gift anyone could ask for! There's no way to ever thank someone for their selfless act of donating!!!! THANK YOU CANDY! XOXO

Now that it's official, we are still going forward with our date of January 26th. I freaked out a little bit on Saturday when I realized it's only a month away. I think that the time will fly by. I'm so glad I have another week off work to clean up the house, get caught up on grading papers and start planning for the next month. I don't want to fall behind in anything at this point. Time is very precious.

As far as needing prayers, I've blogged about my Internet friends, Mary and Amy, whose husbands are brothers, both suffer from PKD and BOTH need transplants. Mary's husband, Sean is having his transplant THIS WEEK (29th) and Amy's husband, Bruce, is having his transplant the 14th of January. It's so amazing to me that their husbands ended up having live donors and their transplants scheduled so close together. It's also amazing to me that I found these people through the PKD page on Facebook and got in touch with them and started blogging because of them. It's wonderful to have friends who are walking in my shoes right now. In fact, it's super cool that they're going thru this ahead of me so that I will be informed and know what to expect when it's Neil's turn!! Even though we don't live in the same states, I can see a meeting someday with them!!!

Please visit their blogs and please say prayers for them as they go through the transplant process this week and in the coming weeks! Please pray the germs stay away from them and that their transplants are successful!

* Mary & Sean (donor Jeremy) can be found at Living with PKD - Transplant December 29th in Nashville, TN

* Amy & Bruce (donor Ken) can be found at PKD Sucks - Transplant January 14th in Tampa, FL

Thank you and HAPPY NEW YEAR everyone!!!!

More news!

Our kidney donor, Candy, called this afternoon while I was on the way home from school! She let me know that the nurse called her and said the Doctor reviewed her CT Scan and cleared her for surgery!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

You would think this is the last step.... but it's not... and like I said earlier, it's all tentative up until they're being wheeled into surgery! The next step is the Pre-Transplant Committee, made up of doctors and nurses, needs to review Neil & Candy's files to make a final decision about proceeding. We honestly do not see why they would say no at this point. The committee meets on Wednesdays to review all their pretransplant patients but ours won't come up for review until next week... so Merry Christmas to us, I guess!

The next step is to pray pray pray that Candy and Neil stay healthy through Christmas and up until it's time for surgery. There's always the chance that either one of them could be sick with a cold and we'd have to postpone the transplant. I was soooooo worried about Neil getting the flu and strep throat I had last week that I wore a surgical mask for 3 days and avoided him as much as possible!! When I talked to the nurse last week, she told me his Creatinine is near 9, which is 'usually' the magic number for dialysis... As long as we don't have any major setbacks, we should be okay for avoiding dialysis before the surgery. He actually has a regular checkup with his Nephrologist tomorrow so we'll see if it's gone up since it was checked in early November.

Thank you all so much for the feedback, love, support, prayers etc that have been offered. We really appreciate everything!!!! :)

I guess you could say it truly IS the gift that keeps on giving!!!!

WE'VE GOT A DATE!!!!!

this update (and news) is long overdue... But life has, once again, been hectic. The past 2 weeks have been really busy with school and all the stuff that comes with that.... working at my kids school... or better yet, having them attend the school where I work can be a little a lot crazy at times! It's always something... and I am always there to deal with things immediately.. which can/cannot be good at times.... however, I will survive... I always do. Actually, speaking of surviving, I thought I was "dying"... (not literally but close) this past weekend. I started feeling really sick on Saturday and by evening I couldn't take it anymore... I looked up the closest urgent care, made sure they were open, and drove myself there. With the multitude of symptoms I was having, I knew something was wrong. And that it was.... I have Strep Throat and the Flu... I am being treated as if it is H1N1 with Tamiflu and Penicillin for the Strep. I've spent the last 3 days in bed or curled up on the couch, catching up with hours of missed TV. (I love DVR). I have to say I'm starting to feel "normal" again but not enough to go back to work tomorrow. The Dr told me to stay off work through tomorrow so I'm actually taking his advice and doing just that! I just need 1 more day to 'make sure' I am up for it because I know once I commit to going back, there's no turning around. I get worn out thinking about going back to work actually... my throat is still pretty swollen and sore and thinking about all that talking I will have to do, just makes me squirm.

So anyway... back to the date.... The donor went to her all-day appointment and all went well... except that I was under the assumption that her CT Scan would take place that afternoon. I was wrong..... They don't actually schedule the CT until after the blood test results come back. When I talked to our NCM, she promised the CT would be the very last test. It is scheduled for this Thursday... however, they don't think there will be problems, so we were able to "tentatively" schedule the transplant in January!!!!!! The donor texted me today with the date!

JANUARY 26, 2010

She said they will need to do 1 more blood matching test on the 19th and then they'll both be admitted to the hospital the day before and then start the transplant on the morning of the 26th! Of course, this is all "tentative" up until the moment they are rolling into the operating room!

I can't even begin to express the relief that fell upon me the minute I read her text message....