Looking at Dates for Surgery

That's right, one of the things we discussed today with Dr. Mendley was possible dates for surgery.

I had a TON of blood drawn before our appointment with Dr Mendley, and also a urine sample. I'm very nervous because I have had protein show up in my urine before and I'm hoping that that either won't happen or it won't be a deal breaker.

Dr. Mendley wants to try to help Katie with her energy level between now and the surgery so we're going up on her Procrit (bed blood cell booster given as a shot) to every 2 weeks from once a month. And her phosphorus went up a little so we're adding more of one of her capsule meds called Phoslo.

Since we have me as a match, and all that's left is the workup Dr. Mendley said we should start talking dates. We asked that we please not do anything in October because of the birthdays adn that would likely be too soon anyway. The first week of November is out because of something going on at the hospital. She said the earliest would probably be the 2nd or 3rd week of November. Since Katie is relatively stable waiting a month from then wouldn't be out of the question either. She asked us to think about it, talk about it as a family and let her nurse know what would be our preference. Obviously there are doctor and surgery schedules that have to be worked around but they will work with us as much as possible. Steve and I would just as soon get the surgery done so we can move on, so I'll be emailing Nancy (the nurse) to let her know that the earliest they think will work is fine with us.

After the appointment Nancy gave us the order for the EKG and Echo, and the chest x-ray. The former are scheduled for 9/22 and the latter was done on a walk-in basis today. Katie also needs to see Dr. Voigt and I set that up for 9/19. On the 30th we will go to the pediatrician's office for her to get an MMR booster, a tetanus shot and a tuberculosis test.

We were able to meet with one of Dr. M's transplant patients today and his Mom who was his living donor, so that was great. They were very kind and generous with their answers and I have their contact info if we think of anything else to ask them. The patient is younger than Katie (only 7) and a boy, but it was still great. I do however want to get serious about trying to reach some of her friends from camp kydnie. Email hasn't worked so I'll be making some phone calls tomorrow.

So that's where we are... any questions, ask away :o)