My First Transplant Appointment

Today was surreal, but not really an emotional day for me.

When we first walked into the clinic and I saw the “Lung Transplant” sign on the wall I got that burning sensation in my eyes that I might cry. But I blinked them back and proceeded to check in. Because I had quite the entourage with me, P and I stayed in the lung transplant waiting room (I was masked up) while my family stayed in the adjoining one.

Right around noon I was told I was going to need to leave the clinic because there was an emergency appointment coming in and we were infectious to each other. She took my number down and we all went to lunch in the café. We were able to return to the clinic around 1pm and were lead into the viewing room to watch a 30 minute video on lung transplants at B&W. It was very informative for my family, and somewhat for me. A lot of the stuff they talk about I am blessed to know already from my extensive online support community. When the video was over we all headed into the waiting room, together since we were the only ones in there at that point. I got a nice surprise then!

A woman who had been in there earlier, also wearing a mask, came over and said I looked familiar. Turns out she reads this blog! So hellooooooooooo!!!!! ***waves energetically*** It was really nice to meet one of my readers that I am not familiar with. It made me feel really great that people out there do read my stuff.

The rest of the appointment was just a physical exam followed by a question session. We went over my history and the Lynch Syndrome issue. I have been cleared for a transplant, as far as they are willing to do it. Apparently I have been the talk of the conference room for a few weeks trying to decide if I was too high a risk to be a recipient! This could be a fun yet scary experience, being the first here to have a double lung transplant while also dealing with a high risk probability for cancer. After chatting we decided to proceed with the evaluation process. On September 12^th I will be admitted for my overnight stay and get a majority of the testing done. Some of the follow up tests like dental exams will obviously need to be done outside of the hospital. Luckily I don’t need pap smears or pregnancy tests though.

It was nice to get in and get things rolling. They are aware that I don’t feel I am in need of being listed as of right now but that I do want to start the ball so that if I get sick fast I am not struggling. They agree completely with my choice too.

Since I have officially started the transplant evaluation process, be sure to look for more updates and YouTube videos.