1. After a stop at The Beanery, where I purchased a lemon scone and a 16 oz double latte, Debbie and I blasted over the clear and dry 4th of July Pass and swooped into Spokane. Debbie dropped me off at the Main Hospital building at Sacred Heart.
I checked in at radiology and before long one technician took an x-ray of my chest and another escorted me to the CT scan room where she took pictures of my abdomen.
I sauntered to the elevator, returned to the main floor, and found the right place to check in for my lab work and an EKG. Before long, I sat while the phlebotomist drew about ten vials of blood out of my arm and I succeeded in producing a urine sample.
After a short wait, I reclined on a gurney and submitted gladly to an EKG.
2. With these procedures finished, I strolled over to the Doctors' Building and the Kidney Transplant Center on the first floor.
I was about a half an hour early for my three appointments scheduled to start at 2:00. No problem. Almost immediately, a nurse popped into the waiting room, weighed me, and took me to a consultation room where she took my blood pressure and blood oxygen and asked me a few questions.
Soon, Debbie arrived. The transplant nurse coordinator popped in and we started to talk about my situation. A change in rules is being enforced. Those of us on the transplant list categorized as inactive now must be evaluated annually. It doesn't matter that it fine with me, but, it is!
Next, one of the program's transplant nephrologists came in.
Dr. Zafar's perspective about my situation was very different from that of my primary nephrologist, Dr. Bieber.
In short, this doctor strongly urged me to return to active status once I've cleared my cardiac tests on February 21st. Because I have so much time on the list accrued, he's confident I would be offered an organ fairly quickly and he urged me to have transplant surgery as soon as possible.
The phrase he repeated is one I was familiar with: preemptive transplant. The idea is to boost the patient's kidney function with a transplant as soon as possible, preempting the patient going on dialysis.
He argued more forcefully for a transplant as soon as possible than any other nephrologist I've worked with.
Up until now, Drs. Bieber and Jones here in Idaho and Dr. Malik in Bethesda have emphasized the stability of my numbers and have counseled me to ride out this stability for as long as possible before being transplanted.
Today, though, Dr. Zafar posed a contrasting argument and seemed puzzled why I would turn down an offer for an organ if I became active again.
Dr. Zafar didn't rattle me. I listened earnestly to what he said and I'm turning it all over, slowly, in my mind. I will wait until my heart tests at the end of this month are finished, make sure I am still healthy enough to remain listed, and then I'll decide, in consultation with Dr. Bieber, how I want to move forward.
I was especially happy that Debbie was with me for this appointment. I'll be able to double check with her that I heard Dr. Zafar's argument the way I think I did. When I see Dr. Bieber next time, Debbie will join me -- that was her idea -- and it's a superb one.
Our last appointment of the afternoon was the best one of the day.
Debbie and I talked for nearly an hour with Helen Hedges who is a social worker with the transplant program.
She reviewed nuts and bolts sorts of things with us about what it means for Debbie to be my support person if I do get transplanted and she talked with us intelligently and insightfully about our visit with Dr. Zafar, making it clear that when it comes to making decisions about a transplant and its timing, it's ultimately my decision. I'll quote Helen: "You are the boss."
3. While I was being scanned, x-rayed, poked, and electrocardiographed, Debbie toured south Spokane. She got a haircut. She dropped in at Target. She made two stops that made me ecstatic: she bought four loaves of bread at Great Harvest and at Huckleberry's she purchased us each a can of pFriem beer, a hazy IPA for herself and a pilsner for me.
We arrived home, each ate heavenly slices of asiago sourdough bread with butter, and settled into watching an episode of Columbo.
The bread, the beer, the risotto Debbie prepared for dinner, and watching Columbo helped us ease out of a fairly intense day at Sacred Heart.
I stayed up longer than Debbie and enjoyed watching an hour of WPT Poker on Pluto TV and then watched the first episode of the Watergate documentary Slow Burn, a fascinating examination of Martha Mitchell.
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