I now have a "nurse for life"! At least thats how I was informed. I went to visit a few people a couple of days ago. One presented herself as my nurse for life. Now that I am on the kidney/pancreas transplant list, she has been assigned to follow me from now until, as she put it, I am beyond waterproof again. This is in reference to the chest catheter I have for dialysis. I seem to be in rather good shape for a diabetic!
Being a long term Type 1 diabetic, I decided to opt for a dual transplant, both a kidney and a pancreas. My reasoning is that if diabetes killed my kidneys, then replace the pancreas. I will be on anti-rejection drugs for the kidneys, so how bad is it to be on drugs for both?
The other person I met with was my new social worker. There were the usual questions. Are you covered by insurance? Do you have a job? Are you depressed?, etc. As it turns out, I'm looking forward to the process. I feel good about it. Money has always been a concern, which is one of the reasons for started my online presence with pdhquick.com and this blog site. I have had it with the regular commute!
I have no idea how long its going to take. When it gets close, I will get a pager and it could happen at any time of the day or night. When it does, typically in the wee hours of the morning, I have a 1 1/2 to 2 hour commute (traffic) to get there. The operation is about 7 hours and the hospital stay is 7 to 10 days. I keep hearing stories about how the kidney list is about 10 years long. Apparently its less than half that for dual transplants. None of that bothers me. This would be a major turning point in my life, akin to winning a lottery!
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