Strike One...

[Sax-O-Trix]

My wonderful sister went tothe hospital today to start the eval process (we had only done the compatibility testing up until this point.)  She arrived at the hsopital and they did the IV contrast ultrasound and catscan on her kidneys and whatever else.  She was to return at 1pm to do the cardiac stress test.  She gets there at 1-pm and finally meets her fricken donor nurse for the first time and an advocate.  They tell her not to bother with the stress test because 1]  she needs to lose 30 lbs. (would've ben nice if someone had caught that before they poked her for an IV, tested her and gave her some sort of catheter port this morning!!!!) 2]  She is to be my children's guardian if something happens to me.  3}  Her husband thinks my brother should be the donor, so he doesn't really supprt her decision to donate, she is 56 years old (news to me, we have known this was coming for 10 plus years and have talked about for as long.)  What the frig, I am so steaming mad that they didn't do the social/psycho eval before they did the tests that they did on her!!! 

I guess my brother is next...  But now we know to ask for the socail/psycho, weight, BP etc. before they do anything else...

[paris]

I am so sorry for all of you about how this was handled.  My potential donors had bloodwork and social worker eval  before ever going through any invasive tests or scans.     Can you ask a co-ordinator about their process so your brother doesn't go through the same thing?  Again, I am sorry. All of this is hard enough without stupid things happening.

[cariad]

So sorry to hear this, Sax. Something about this sounds really suspicious to me. It really should not matter what her husband wants, though I have heard of other spouses trying to interfere with donation. Same for your sister being guardian to your children. My husband donated to me, and in all the hospitals we visited for this, no one ever said this was a concern. Yes, you would want to appoint a back-up guardian, but unless there is no one else you would trust, this is just a formality. Luckily, it is extremely rare for a donor to die from this procedure.

The weight - I am a bit too bleary-eyed right now to go into my weight tirade, but the short version states that there is little to no evidence that extra weight, even into extreme obesity, poses any real extra risk to donors. No need to take my word for it - try to find journal articles on the subject. I have looked extensively and found a handful, with conflicting results. I would have argued that one to the death had it been an issue in my case.

It sounds like you have accepted that you are going to move on to your brother, and it sounds like that will be the quickest and most aggravation-free way to proceed. Good luck!