Living Kidney Donation

Posts Tagged ‘rib cage’

 Living Donor Pre Assessment Clinic including final meeting with surgeon, anaesthetist, pharmacist and Transplant co-ordinator.

By law you have to have some medical checks done within 2 weeks prior to the operation. This is to ensure that you are fit and healthy just prior to the operation. Some of the evaluation tests were done a few months ago, so up to date ones would be required. 

I arrived early in the morning at the hospital, knowing I would be there most of the day. Here is a list (as presented to me at the hospital) as to what the day would hold. I was at the hospital for around 5 hours and the following took place but not necessarily in this order:

Tests I had done:
1. Blood and urine samples (they took 20 tubes of blood! yes .. 20!)
2. MRSA swab (gave me a loooong q-tip I had to wipe the inside of my nose with)
3. Chest X-ray
4. ECG

I was seen by:
1. Consultant Surgeon
2. Anaesthetist
3. Pharmacist
4. Transplant Co-ordinator

1. Consultant Surgeon:
My Consultant Surgeon explained that he would not be available to do the operation.  There would be two other surgeons. He told me a bit about them. I was a little unsettled about this, as familiarity of people/faces goes towards a relaxing atmosphere and I felt I knew my current  Surgeon and felt very relaxed in his company. But then I thought I am going to be out of it anyway under anaesthetic, so won’t really matter, so I was okay with that.

The surgeon went through the procedure from admission to after the operation. He drew a picture showing where the incisions would be and why. There would be a small incision just above the belly button, through this the camera would go.  Two more would placed to the right of the camera incision – one just under the rib cage and the other same distance below the camera one. Through those two the surgical instruments would go. My surgeon comically called them “chopsticks”. Another small incision would go to the right of the one just under the rib cage. Through this incision an instrument would go that would move the liver out of the way which is very close to the right kidney. Those four small incisions would be around 1-2cms (the one above the belly button actually ended up around 4cms the others were very small though). The final incision is along the bikini line and would be around 6 inches. It is through that the kidney is extracted.  He also explained that it would be hard to move around in my abdomen as not much room, so they inflate me like a large balloon with carbon dioxide. An after effect of this could be that some gas could escape up into the shoulder blade area and afterwards cause some discomfort for a few days (it did! lol).
Read the rest of this entry »