Whoa Kidney Drama!

Dun..dun...Duuuuuuuuuunnnnnn....Have you been on the edge of your seat waiting to hear the latest and greatest on the kidney front? Well wait no longer! Let me bring you up to speed with a quick update.

When we left off last week, I had talked to the nurse coordinator, *C*. She'd gotten the signature on my paperwork that she was waiting for and she was still waiting for a note from my dad's hematologist. She expected to have it by the end of the week (again) and would call me just as soon as she had it.

Well that was a Tuesday and on Wednesday I was at work when I noticed she'd called...twice. What...the...crap? So unlike her! I hoped nothing was wrong. I gave her a call back and she said she couldn't find my "vitals" test results. In all of my experience with doctors and such, "vitals" has always meant vital signs (blood pressure, etc.). I remember at the start that she mentioned something about needing "vitals", but then promptly forgot about it. I mean they take my vitals every time I visit one of the doctors' offices so I've had them done about a zillion times already. Well when she called I realized we'd never done an official vitals test at the clinic and I thought, hey, no biggie. I told her I'd run in after work and get them done. She told me to go to the lab. hmmmm...ok. Never had vital signs taken at the lab, but sure, why not? When I go there, they bring me back to the blood draw room with 7 (count them, 7) tubes. Naturally my curiousity got the best of me so I asked, what did we miss doing? Apparently, in the kidney donation world, vitals meant blood tests for blood typing, testing for Epstein Barr Virus (EBV, which can indicate if you have or have had mono), testing for syphilis, testing for HIV, and testing for another virus that escapes my memory at this moment. Kind of important things to know before you give someone major surgery. Good news is that I saw my test results online today and everything is negative, except one EBV antibody. I like the Intermountain website because it has a link to a site that explains all the tests, what's normal, etc. That site told me that the antibody I was positive for shows up if you get mono and stays in your system for the rest of your life. The other EBV antibody showed negative and that one is more of an indication if you recently were infected. So from what I gathered, I must have had mono at one time or another in my life. Not all that unusual so I'm not too concerned about that test result. But I'm no doc, so we'll see what they have to say.

I thought, I need to call *C* and get an update since I know the results are in. Then I received an email from my insurance company telling me my claim was processed. Huh? What claim? I look it up and it's the kidney CT and I may owe $93. (I can't remember if I mentioned before, my insurance is not supposed to get billed for any of this.) Well, I thought, I needed to call her anyway so now seems like a good time. I called the office and I asked is *C* available? (for some reason I'm feeling the need now to protect her identity..keep reading for why) They said do you mean *CD*? I said yes, and the receptionist says "oh, she's no longer with us. *B* is taking over her cases" I was shocked. In fact, I'm sure the receptionist could tell because I literally said "huh? umm....ooookaaaayyyy.....weeeeelll...." and kept stumbling for words. I told the receptionist why I was calling and she said "I'll have *B* give you a call when he is available and I'll have you leave a voicemail for our billing guy and he can take care of the insurance mixup". I hung up the phone thoroughly in shock. And then I texted my dad to let him know. He was shocked as well.

New thoughts....Why is she not there? "she's no longer with us" sounds to me like that decision was not hers. However, as I think I've made clear from previous posts, she didn't give off warm fuzzies about being in that position either. So it could have entirely been her choice. It's impossible to guess what happened, but I'm just nosey enough to be reeeeally curious.

Is this a good thing or a bad thing? Only time will tell. I can hope that *B* is slightly more proactive and gives off the sense of urgency that I've been feeling is missing. But of course I won't know until I talk to him. Now if her absence is not her choice, was there something in her performance that caused her dismissal? If so, does this mean that I can't trust what I've been told about where our case is today? Ugh, just the thought of that stresses me out. I soooo don't want more delays. Of course, I want everything to be as accurate as possible so if delays are necessary, then so be it. But it doesn't make me want them.

****DISCLAIMER****** All of my feelings above are my initial, knee-jerk reactionary conjectures. I literally started writing this directly after getting off that phone call. None of my thoughts are based on any real information. The clinic did not divulge any info they shouldn't have. There are a million reasons why *C* could be gone, many of them perfectly benign. In other words, I have no clue why she's gone. I'm just shocked and confused.***End of DISCLAIMER****

So we'll see more when I talk to *B*, but here's hoping things start moving along at a more fitting pace.