Living Kidney Donation

CT Scan now booked – 28th October 2009

CT stands for Computerised Tomography. This will be in the Radiology Department.
The CT Scanner is a machine that takes detailed slice-type pictures of the body using x-rays and a computer. Instead of sending out a single X-ray through your body as with ordinary X-rays, several beams are sent simultaneously from different angles. In my case it will result in detailed image of the kidneys, their location, size, the arteries and veins connected to the kidneys. From this image the surgeon can decide which will be the safest kidney to remove.  Although we have two kidneys they are not necessarily identical. One can be larger (my left one is) and they can each have a different number of veins. The fewer the better as far as surgical procedures.

I will be asked to lay on a couch which then moves through the CT machine which will scan my abdomen.  The machine is an open ring-like structure – rather like a doughnut!   I will feel nothing, but will be able to see lights on the machine.  I may be given an injection of a colourless dye which will help to show up the blood vessels.

This is what a CT Scanner can look like.

CT Scanner

The hospital are great, they promised they would manage to fit in this CT Scan before I went to London and they have. I did not want my time away from home to hold up procedings any more than they had to.

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