As you have probably heard by now Vickie and Linda were both rejected at KU. They had all there test sent over to St. Lukes and reviewed. At St. Lukes they said they could be possible donors. Steve would need to send his records over so they could go over his stuff.

After much thought he has decided for now to stay at KU and wait for a cadaver kidney and the reason for this is. We do not know the unknown and both of the girls having blood in their urine and find no reason why we think it might be risky. We dont need to put them at risk now or down the road by taking a kidney from them and really not knowing why the blood is there. Steve appreciates their generosity very much but he has decided to wait.

The transplant coordinator and Dr. Winklehoffer both talked to me on the phone this week. They tend to error on the side of caution with live donor transplants with the blood in the urine. They did tell us that their is approximately 16 people a head of Steve on the list. So hopefully it will happen sometime this summer.

We are doing pretty good with the home dialysis and his blood work is good also. He is now using 25 liters of dialasate with each treatment. This keeps moving up to make sure he is getting enough dialysis.

This is all for now. I hope the next time I blog I am letting you know we are at KU getting a kidney.

Christy

Steve received his official letter this week that he has been activated on the transplant list. The letter said he had 14 months of time already accumulated. It also said he would need to start sending blood once a month to the lab. They have to have a current blood drawn on file each month so when a kidney comes in that can do the matching. He is doing a nuclear er heart test this week. Same thing he had done a year ago just has to be updated. I don't think astronauts do this much testing. So I guess now we wait for a call that it is his turn to get a kidney.

Linda and Vickie have sent all there test results to St. Lukes and are waiting on a call from them to see what they think about possible donors. I did get on a website that was given to me by a case manager through my insurance and it gives you numbers for success rates for transplant centers in the United States. Very interesting. Midwest seems to have the shortest waiting time and KU and St. Lukes success rate is within 1% of each other. KU has done more kidney transplants but looks like both are good hospitals.

We are waiting for a call to tell us they have a kidney for Steve. Hoping and praying this happens this summer. Keep up the prayer support. Seems like a snail pace but we are making progress.

Steve & Christy