Labs

[Dara3351]

15 months past transplant and now I go for labs every three months. Hoping everything stays stable! Hoping everyone else is doing great!

[Falkenhayn]

Once I was at my regular transplant follow-up meeting and my blood pressure was high so the nurse said she would set the machine to do an automatic reading and leave the room to avoid the 'white coat effect,' by which the presence of medical personal can induce elevated stress and higher blood pressure in the patient. I said, "Don't you understand, this entire building is the 'white coat,' since for transplant recipients they give out death sentences here!" She seems never to have thought about the stress we feel in such situations.

[LisaSnow]

How are you feeling?

[Falkenhayn in reply to LisaSnow]

Now my transplant is starting to fail and I'm a bit reluctant honestly to tell the nephrologists that I'd rather be dead than on dialysis. It's true, but I'm afraid they'll put me in a cage if I tell them I prefer death the dialysis.

[LisaSnow in reply to Falkenhayn]

Hang in there. There are different ways to tie over between transplants. Don't give up hope!

[Falkenhayn in reply to LisaSnow]

I live in Canada, where it takes five years to die on dialysis between transplants and you have to wait ten years for your next transplant, so at least they make it easy to do the math.

[LisaSnow in reply to Falkenhayn]

Why do you need to wait 10 years again if you need a second transplant?

[Falkenhayn in reply to LisaSnow]

Canada has the lowest organ donation rate in the developed world, and one of the many side-effects of that is that patients needing a transplant have to wait on the list for about ten years on average. I was initially on dialysis for nine years, and during that period I never saw any patients leave the clinic because they got a transplant, though many left because they died of complications due to the inadequate cleansing of renal toxins by dialysis. In my age group, the average life expectancy now on dialysis would be five years, so with a ten-year wait for a transplant to become available you can do the math and realize I would never get one.