Well, I've been on holiday for a week and on the first day away I was called and given my tissue typing result. It seems that I'm a perfect match for Tim and, as it happens, I already knew that Nick was also a perfect match. We had had a discusion about which of us potential donors should be tested first. Nick had realised that logically it would be better if I took precedence as he and Tim run a company together, whereas I'm retired; I wasn't going to argue as I had always felt in my bones that this had my name on it (as I've mentioned before).
So, a week ago I called Nick to confirm that decision and then rang the transplant co-ordinator at Tim's hospital. Having told her of our decision I rather expected that things would start to happen fairly quickly. Back from holiday yesterday I rang the transplant co-ordinator at my local hospital; she knew the tissue typing result but had not been told of our decision! I'm very glad that I rang her as it would have been annoying if nothing had happened for a few weeks before someone realised that communications had failed - you can see why things can take longer than you expect. I think that one has to take charge of this sort of thing and not be a passive patient. Anyway, now she will sort out the next step and very soon I'll be back there for a whole set of tests in a single day.
I think their process is that having found a donor who passes all the tests, they wait until the recipient's GFR drops to 15% then schedule the operation so it's done before it gets to 10%. His last figure was 19% and they cannot predict whether it will stay around there for ages or suddenly fall. Of course, we don't know if I will pass all the tests so I think we should get on with this soonest, thus leaving plenty of time for other volunteers to be tested as required.
NB I'm still not sure why the cross-matching hasn't been done yet. I think they said they'll do it later but it seems to me quite important that my blood doesn't get attacked by his!
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