Surgery is Scheduled!!

At least tentatively... A match run was done and, as expected, I was linked with a potential kidney recipient!

A virtual cross match was done where the antibodies of the recipient and my tissue typing are entered into a computer system that determined, at first glance, we're a match but a couple more tests still need to be done: An actual cross-match test and a blood test. And because a recipient's antibody levels go up and down there is a second cross-match test done closer to the surgery.

And if all goes well, my surgery is scheduled for December 9, 2009! I can barely believe it! That is exactly 1 month from today, 4 weeks from Wednesday!! I'm excited!

There will be a total of 12 transplants performed and in my group there are 3 pairs.

This is a new link posted on @organdonations on Twitter that is a similar set up to mine (3 donors, 3 recipients):
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/health/healthnews/6524508/Doctors-to-perform-Britains-first-three-way-kidney-transplant.html

From the Canadian Society of Transplantation:
A living donor paired exchange registry is a database of medical information on incompatible donor-recipient pairs. Each pair consists of a patient with chronic kidney disease and someone who would like to donate a kidney to them, but cannot do so because they are ABO or HLA incompatible. At regular intervals, a mathematical algorithm is applied to the database to identify and optimize the number of compatible pairs that might be able to exchange donors so that both patients can receive a living donor kidney transplant.

From the Transplant Week website
Medical Views: Living Donation -- Is It For You?