Test Results

We got our test results back from the University ofPennsylvania yesterday and got some good news and some unexpected news. The good news is that both Bill and I arecompletely healthy! They literally testyou for almost every possible well-known disease/cancer/sickness and thankfullyboth of us passed with flying colors. The unexpected news was that they want my kidney and not Bill'skidney. I won't go into all the detailsas to why, but it definitely has thrown a monkey wrench into our plans of howwe were going to tackle this whole thing; physically, mentally, andfinancially. So yesterday was a bit ofstressful day in the Schwartz house. Thehard part throughout this whole transplant process has been all of theseunknowns (I'm pretty sure I've talked about this before). Not knowing how Stephen will get a kidney,when it will happen, how long we'll have to stay in Philadelphia, what it willcost us, how Stephen will do with the surgery, now how I'll do with thesurgery, and the list goes on and on. Andin the meantime, we've been attempting to buy a house. Probably not a good idea to take on such aHUGE task, but we've outgrown our 1,100- square foot condo (a long time ago) sowe thought we would pull the trigger and do it. But after getting the news from UPenn yesterday, we pulled back on thetrigger just as we were about to put an offer in on a house. It's just too much stress and too muchuncertainty to take such a giant leap. Wepretty much feel like the wind has been taken out of our sails for the timebeing until we have some more stability in our lives.

I did however get some encouraging news from CHOPthough. I called them to update them onthe test results and in doing so asked Jo Ann about where we stand on thetransplant list. It turns out that yourstanding on the list doesn't matter at all until a kidney actually becomesavailable and then the computer generates a list of people based on the donorinformation. So for one kidney Stephenmay be 3rd on the list, where he would be 100 on the list for another. That's key to understanding where you mayfall among all of the other recipients. But what was very encouraging is that since Stephen was listed on July27th, there have been three kidneys come available; not just the one wereceived the call about. The first weknew about and got the call that Stephen was being cross-matched. The second wasn't a close match at all and sothere was no cross matching done in relationship to Stephen. And the third, was a good enough match onpaper that the surgeon evaluated it for Stephen. But in the end, the donor was consideredhigh-risk and therefore the surgeon passed. So it's encouraging to know that in the month that Stephen has been onthe list, there have been three donors! Those are pretty good odds I think!

And I'll be going back up to UPenn next Wednesday to meetwith the nephrologist, so then I'll formally be added to the registry and we'llbe listed as an official A+/O+ swap. Sofor the time being the saga continues :)

But Mr. Stephen is doing great!! His infection is all gone and he's so close to walking on his own. He actually blew me kisses for the first time when Ileft for work this morning. A very proudMomma moment!!! Now if the little buggercould just sleep the whole way through the night I'd be an even happier Momma!