Wahoo! I am on the liver transplant list at Duke University Hospital!

I know many of you thought I was already on it before now, but nothing major goes without wrinkles [like a wedding day! Kevin didn’t get lunch or anything at the reception, so our first stop as a married couple was Wendy’s].

After all my appointments on May 11, the blood TB test came back indeterminate. This ultimately came down to a lab issue, but I had to see an infectious disease doctor to make sure- especially because I had the BCG vaccine living overseas against TB as a kid that can give false positive TB skin tests. Of course, the repeat test came back over Memorial Day weekend.

The other wrinkle was getting my low-grade fevers checked out. I’d had more of them over the past week, and they needed to make sure there was no obvious infection that needed to be treated before they placed me on the list. There is not, so they called me this afternoon to place me on the transplant list! I grumbled a little about this (sorry, dear!), but ultimately I am glad they have cleared my fevers before I arrived to receive a liver and a secondary infection became a concern for the team that might prevent transplant.

I am on the list, so now a request can be sent to the regional board to ask for a MELD score of 28. They have up to 14 days to respond- and 6 of 11 have to agree to the score for it to go into effect. With a 28, I would be at the top of the B+ list at Duke (no way to tell about UNC, who also receives organs in this area). [Hey, I just realized that’s the same score as my age! Nifty.] It should be fairly quick to receive a liver- especially since I could split a large donor liver with a pediatric patient.

My neighbor said the other day: a 28-year-old should not have to be dealing with this, only someone my age! I’d like to offer a corrective. NO ONE should have to be dealing with this. However, since I have to, I can’t think of a better time or place. Married with a strong support system- but without kids to be worried about right now, serving a loving, gracious church who knows how to ‘go with the flow’ [and not thinking about receiving a new appointment as I would be if I had not become a student pastor], on good insurance, at Duke- living in Durham near one of the best medical centers in the country, near the end of my program where I have some flex time, only needing 4 classes instead of 6 next year to graduate…. I could go on.

Wahoo! Yippee! Hooray! Alleluia! Praise God!