Transplant Evaluation Day #2

I just finished my living donor evaluation at NMH. We won't have an answer for a week or so, which is going to be an unbearable wait. **UPDATE - I just found out that Jaisal's surgeon will be out of the country all of next week and likely won't look at the MRI results until he returns. Ugghh.***

The day went pretty much as expected. I met with a social worker and psychologist who wanted to make sure I was donating for the right reasons. Hmmm, my kid has a liver condition that necessitates a transplant. I love him more than anything in the world. Yup, I'm pretty comfortable with undergoing surgery for him. After that were meetings with the transplant surgeon and nurse coordinator to discuss the surgery. No big surprises there.

Last stop was my MRI, which would determine if I had sufficient liver volume, normal anatomy, blood flow, etc. to be a donor. I knew going into the day that the MRI might be a challenge since I am mildly claustrophobic. Anyway, they slid me into the machine and I immediately had to have them pull me out, since the tube felt tiny and closed. The tech suggested that I close my eyes and we try again. Nope no better. At this point I was panicking at the thought of doing the MRI and not doing the MRI and having wasted this evaluation day. Thankfully, an assistant tech recommended I tilt my head back so that I could look out of the back end of the machine. Bingo! It worked. I could see something other than the tube and breathe non-stale air, and I had no problem being still for the whole set of images. Phew crisis averted.

FYI - This is a picture of the "big" MRI. I am so glad I didn't have to figure out if I could survive a smaller MRI, since that did not feel big to me. Anyway, I survived. Now we wait and hope that I am a match.