I have a surgery date: 12/9 (day after my birthday)!
Yesterday I posted a bunch of questions to Garet Hil, the NKR founder, about the waitlist, non-directed donation, etc. They were requesting comments on the Youtube video of his keynote for the virtual National Kidney Donation Organization conference last week – supposedly they are going to answer questions tomorrow, but weirdly the comments are gone now? Then this morning I talked to the transplant social worker about the possibility of donating directly to the local deceased donor wait list, and which NKR-like protections I could still get – basically none, but she was going to ask whether I could at least request a recipient on Medicare, which covers complications properly, versus private insurance which can cut off. A few hours later my coordinator called about a match email which basically sends me back to the local waitlist without a chain, but with full NKR protections. So it’s a little disappointing not to be part of a chain, but very exciting because:
- I’m directly helping someone who doesn’t have a living donor match (awesome for them if it works, because living kidneys last way longer)
- It’s someone local, which feels good
- Because we’re in a COVID sane area, I’m at least a little more confident my recipient won’t get it… no guarantees of course as we enter the next phase, but still!
- If/when my recipient agreed to get in touch, it would be easier to meet them
- Most of all right now, no more waiting for a call, and plenty of time to plan!
I’m going to wait to tell family until about 3 weeks out, which is probably when I would have heard under normal circumstances. Whew! Poor Jonathan’s reaction was “Oh no…” (because of the timing) but he is still very supportive. It will have been a year and a day since I started this process, and I’m so excited to be done during 2020! Fingers crossed nothing goes wrong!