UPDATE

On the way to dialysis this morning, the transplant team at OU hospital called my mom to tell her the results of the second part of the donor testing. This is the part where they match antigens together to see how closely the donor's blood matches my blood, thus resulting in a better outcome of my body accepting the new kidney which means the new kidney has a better chance of lasting longer.

There are six genetic markers/antigens that they look for in the match and a three-antigen match is considered good. Obviously, the more the better and a six-antigen match is considered a perfect match.

My mom is a three-antigen match and my dad is a four-antigen match. That's a bit short of the perfect match that I was praying for but it does mean both of my parents are good matches for me and they are both cleared to begin the more thorough donor testing. However, since my dad was the better match, they're going to start with him first.

He beat me to the punch with this update but that's alright because, after reading some of the comments that people made to his facebook status, I want to dispel a misconception that I was picking up.

First off, this does NOT mean that my dad is cleared as a donor. It means that he and my mom are both good matches with me for organ transplantation. The next phase in the living donor process is for my dad to undergo some rigorous testing, from head to foot, to determine whether or not he can give me his kidney. If something comes up that would disqualify him from donating, then my mom starts the process to see if she can donate, and on down the line of potential donors until one is cleared.

If anything is wrong with my dad, medically, then he's going to know all about it after the tests are done and the transplant team is going to make sure those are fixed before he is cleared to donate.

This is good news but, in my opinion, it's not wonderful news and it's really not much of a reason to be happy as some people were in the comments to my dad's facebook status. Maybe I'm just really cynical but I'm not going to be happy until one of my parents clear for donating, the surgery for both of us goes great, and we are both recovered and back to our lives again. But if you want to be happy over this, I won't stop ya. It is good news and it does give us some direction to follow. It is progress.

In closing, I'd like to ask you to pray that my body will start tolerating hemodialysis better so that I'll be able to start the training for the peritoneal-dialysis (PD) at home. I'll explain the difference to that in a later post but my PD nurse says that they're going to postpone the training until I'm a little stronger. Frankly, I'm not seeing that happening so I just want to get the training over with so I can stay at home.

I'm also having trouble keeping my blood pressure under control. It is way too high and lately I've been getting some nasty headaches after dialysis. Today I woke up with a headache which means my blood pressure is staying way too high even after a few hours of sleep and it shouldn't do that. The doctor's assistant at the dialysis center told my mom to log my BP numbers two to three times a day and bring that log to her on Thursday so she can take it to the doctor and see if they need to adjust my BP medication so if you would also just pray for that as well.

I greatly appreciate your prayers and I want you to know that they are definitely much needed during this time.