That Time I (Hopefully) Gave Away A Kidney – Part 43 (Getting Into My Medical Chart! – First, The Checklist)

November 2, 2014

Picking up from Wednesday –

During the course of this story, I’ve mainly been talking about how I perceived what the medical professionals must be thinking of me. But now since I got my medical chart, what say you we go through it together?

First up, we have the nephrologist’s report. Nothing to write home about here. It basically says, ‘healthy white female seems genuinely interested in being a living kidney donor. She understands the risks, wishes to proceed, and I see no medical reason why she shouldn’t.’

We’ve got some papers with tons of numbers about blood pressure, blood tests, and all that jazz. (Oh so many papers. Oh so many tests.) Everything looks lovely on that.

As far as the paper on the chest x-ray, everything looks beautiful (except “3 sternotomy wires are noted in place.” It’s fine that they’re there, but you know, they can see them…)

CT angio looks great. My kidneys are about 11 x 5 centimeters, in case you’re curious.

And now, the moment we’ve been waiting for… What did the psychologist and the social worker say?

First, there’s a little check list. The second thing on the check list is “presentation.” And they check the line marked “alone.” Then they put an explanation by it!  (They say I didn’t want my dad to take off work.)

That is true that I wouldn’t have wanted him to take a day off work, so that’s what I said on the spot when confronted about it. However, it didn’t even occur to me to ask him to come. No one told me to bring someone! How was I supposed to know?

I didn’t know I was going to get dinged because I didn’t want to drag someone to a day full of tests and interviews where he would’ve sat around and done nothing. Why would it have dawned on me to bring someone?

If it was that important to them that I show I have people in my life, why didn’t they let me know? I’m sure I could’ve brought someone had anybody mentioned at any time that bringing someone was important.

In the employment section, it says “patient is currently unemployed; previously worked as an assistant editor for a television show.” While I agree that that is a truthful statement, it’s not like “oh, at one time I worked and now I’m out of a job with no prospects.” This is my life. I work. Then I don’t. Then I do. Then I don’t. There’s always another job on the horizon.

I know I’m being a little too sensitive about how they phrased it, but because they kind of gave me a hard time about it, I am sensitive about it.

And we will get into oh so much more next Wednesday.

I'd love to hear from you! So whaddya say?