Anna

I had let them know when I was going through the evaluation process that I did have some history with mental health issues, and at that time it had been pretty, you know, pretty under control for a while. I was seeing a therapist just because of like everything in my life that was going on, including the-the upcoming donation. But there were other things too. And- But I hadn't been on any kind of medication in years. And they of course wanted me to be evaluated by their own person to see if I was like even okay to do it. And I spent like two hours talking to her, and she said she felt like I was probably fine to go ahead and do it; that she didn't feel any hesitation about it. But, you know, she just said, "If you do have any issues afterwards, you know, you can always talk to us and let us know, and we'll figure out what we can do to help you through it."

And since I wasn't a match…They said that I wouldn't be able to donate to him directly. They said that what people usually do in that situation is a paired exchange, and that they'd put us both into a database, and when somebody comes up in the system who we'd be able to like trade with, then we'd be able to do it…We were kind of told to expect to wait a while. And there- there were just a lot of things that happened, , you know, that he kept getting taken off the list temporarily for different reasons. And he was kind of getting sicker and sicker. Just kind of getting to the point where any little thing would put him in the hospital. And uhm, I started worrying that if we didn't do it soon, we weren't going to have a chance because , you know, if you're not well enough, then you can't-you can’t do it…his [doctors] actually had given him an article they cut out of the newspaper about a non-matching pair donation…So I called the donor coordinator and I said, , you know, "Hey, we got this article. I don't know if it's possible for us to do that or not." And she said, "We were actually going to talk to you guys about doing that and see if that was something you're interested in." I said, "Yeah, definitely…I think it was maybe three or four months later that they said, "Okay, well, we'll go ahead and, you know, start the process." And it takes forever. It just did. It takes a really long time. You just feel like it's never going to get done because there's so many things that have to come for it, and then when you think you have all that done, then it's been a year, so they have to retest and you have to do that first. And uhm…so the first- the first step just in being able to do a non-matching donation was to get it approved by the insurance company. So they had to do that first. That took about a month to get, not the transplant itself approved but the, uhm, the apheresis and the other procedures that he would need to not reject my kidney...After that, it happened pretty quick because once they start doing all of that stuff, it only takes a few weeks. And, uhm, and then when-when they're ready, they're ready.

For me, the recovery, it was a little harder. I was in a lot of pain. I did have a really hard time with uhm with that while I was in the hospital. They gave me , you know, like, the max of what they're allowed to give me and it just wasn't helping much. At most, it just kind of like made me go to sleep, which is fine because then I could sleep through it. But anytime I was awake, it hurt and it hurt to move. Anytime I had to engage my core for anything at all, it was really painful…I couldn't use the bathroom. [laughter] And they told me, "You're going to have to have a bowel movement before they let you leave." And then I wound up-they wound up sending me home without having one because I couldn't do it. They tried a lot to get- to get that to happen and didn't work. And I think that that might have made my pain even worse because I was just getting backed up and had all this, you know, pressure in my abdomen. And my abdomen already hurt. So having that kind of made it worse…And the pain just kind of gradually got better on its own. I was- I was in the hospital for about four days…by the fourth day, the pain was already starting to subside on its own quite a bit. I, you know, it still hurt but it wasn't unbearable. So uhm, after I went home, it continued to get better but it took a while.