Duke Transplant Evaluation Day 1

Note to readers: these transplant evaluation recaps are delayed a week because I was just to darn exhausted to blog during that week. Enjoy.


Day 1 - Monday August 2nd
Hey All,
Tried to think of a catchy title for this one but WAY too much going on yesterday for me to distill it into one catchy phrase.

We arrived in Duke Sunday around 6pm. Thankfully the drive was much shorter than the 12 hours I had anticipated. No laws were "excessively" broken getting here either. We're staying at the Washington Duke Inn right at the edge of campus and very close to the hospital. It's a very beautiful place and very fancy. Thankfully I'm getting a great rate through a Medstay program and can therefore afford to be spoiled. It's really the perfect place for short term stays here. We can talk long term options later.

The day started off with Transplant Orientation lead by pre-transplant coordinator Lauren Rich. Lauren and I have spoken by phone and via email and it was so cool to put a face with the name. Speaking of faces both Randy & I were thinking how much she reminded us of someone. We both separately concluded that she looked and acted a LOT like our friend Liz. We met Liz when she worked out at the CF Foundation. Liz is beautiful, cute, radiates energy, is enthusiastic, intelligent and has great compassion (and no she didn't pay us to say this). Lauren is much the same. You can tell she has a great depth of knowledge and a passion for what she does and those she is helping.


Two big shockers came out of the event. Lauren mentioned that some of the attendees were only there for a few days of testing and others were there for a full week. The two day evaluations were for those further away from the transplant timeframe while the week long evaluations were for those a few months away from getting listed. I’m thinking my transplant wouldn’t be for another year or two. But my evaluation is for a week??? Does that mean that I’m closer than I think? The other shocker is Duke’s no alcohol policy. Once accepted by Duke I’ll have to give up my wine with dinner and the occasional margarita. The wine will be the hardest. Eating a steak without a nice red just seems wrong. But I guess if the choice is new lungs or wine the choice is a no brainer!


After orientation we met with the social worker. She got to know us, gave us info on long term accommodations, and told us a story about a guy giving up his 3000 bottle wine collection during his transplant journey,. I guess if he can do it so can I.

Then we met with Dr. Blazing the cardiologist. He did a physical exam and told me that the pressures in my arteries seemed to be only slight. He was able to tell this by looking at my eyes. Very cool. He also thought my right heart might be working a little hard but nothing severe yet. When you have lungs with lots of blockages it makes the right heart work harder to pump all the blood through them. We briefly discussed the cardiac cath test scheduled for Friday. Our only final question was what restaurants he suggested. Honestly I think we spent more time talking about that than my heart. He was so much fun!


The last appointment was with Dietary. In the past I’ve not had much luck with dieticians. Often I know more about what works for me to put on the pounds than they do. Fortunately, Wendy was an amazing dietician. She really understood the ins & outs of CF. We discussed post transplant diabetes and possible gastroparesis. Her insight made me feel more at ease with those issues. Once again another fun & bright “Dukie”.

After a long and somewhat overwhelming first day we treated ourselves to dinner at Nana’s (think euro cuisine meets the south). Nothing like chicken liver pate to end a long day…YUM!!!