I scheduled this post to go live while our liver transplant is happening. So as you read this, please pray for my cousin and I in surgery! I’ll talk about the past few weeks and what I expect to happen in the next day or so. Preparing for Transplant Again Having done this once before, I realize I… [Read More]
Living Liver Donor – Financial Considerations
Money. It shouldn’t be a deciding factor in becoming a living donor. But it does factor into actually following through with being a living donor. I’ll share with you how a donor assistance program and other donations are helping us with over $8,000 of non-medical costs. What does Insurance Cover? My cousin’s insurance (not mine) covers… [Read More]
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Living Liver Donor Story: When The Transplant is Postponed
It’s 10:47 PM and I’ve been awake for 20 hours. I’m sitting here, in a hotel room hallway, a little numb and crestfallen. The living liver transplant that was scheduled for tomorrow morning has been postponed…or cancelled until further notice. I feel the need to get this info out there before the morning, before I… [Read More]
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Living Liver Donor Story: Surgical Consult
After being approved to be a living liver donor, the next steps were to: Choose a transplant date. Schedule the surgical consults. Bank a unit of my blood. NAT testing (blood tests). Start taking two medications; a bile thinner and stool softener. I’ll cover those first four things in this post. Fundraiser T-Shirts now available!… [Read More]
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Living Liver Donor Story: Waiting for Approval
At this point in the story, I’ve finished the potential liver donor tests. Now we’re waiting for approval. There have been many different waiting periods in this journey. I want to share why this waiting period was so important for me. Waiting feels horrible. First, let’s acknowledge that waiting sucks. You have no control and can’t do… [Read More]
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Living Liver Donor Story: Evaluation Process
In this post I talk about my donor mentor a bit and share what my donor evaluation process was like at UCSF – in other words, all the tests that were done back in March. But first, a little review of my living liver donor story so far. Feb 2nd I found out my cousin… [Read More]
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Living Liver Donor Story: Pre-Screening
If this is the first you’re reading of my living liver donor story, you can start from the beginning. After learning my cousin needed a living liver donor my husband and I decided to take the first step. This meant research and pre-screening, which I’m sharing about in this post. Sharing a Liver 101 I started… [Read More]
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Living Liver Donor Story: Responding to the need.
Subscribe to follow my living liver donor story. Living Liver Donor Story Folks, this is hard to write. Not because I don’t want to share, but because I don’t know how to share and what to share. I typically write in a casual, light-hearted, sometimes sarcastic tone, but to do that with this topic seems risky…. [Read More]
