Duke Transplant Evaluation Day 4

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




Day 4 - Thursday August 5th

Today started off bright & early getting to the clinic at 7:30am. I'm usually not even awake by then so being ready that early was a real challenge. Thankfully most of my tests today were Radiology and fairly easy. The first was a Chest CT. No biggie there. I just had to lie down and breath when they told me. Of course the holding the breath part can be hard but not too bad today.

Then came the VQ Scan. This test starts by having you inhale a radioactive gas. The purpose is to see how well your lungs exchange gas. The second part measured the blood flow in the lungs by injecting a radioactive dye. Again not too difficult.

After inhaling & being injected, next I got to swallow radioactive barium. This test measures how well my intestinal tract is working. It's not particularly difficult but the barium sure tastes nasty. Imagine drinking a cupful of slightly liquified chalkdust one swallow at a time...yuk! The upside was being able to see the screen that showed the stuff going down my esophogus & into my stomach. Pretty neat.

The last test was just an ultrasound of my carotid artery. Almost fell asleep in this one.

The day ended with an appointment with Dr. Scott Palmer. Dr. Palmer used to be the director of the transplant program but now is the scientific director. I was really excited to get him as I'm always interested in what research is out there. Our discussion began with my recent medical history. After that he asked what I thought about the timing of me being listed. I told him listing in the next month would seem too soon but that I feel like I'm on the edge and it wouldn't take much to push me over. He concurred.

Dr. Palmer said most of my results would make me an excellent candidate when the time came. However, the manometry study and barium swallow indicated that I have esophogeal motility issues & acid reflux. So the next steps are to try and get that under control via some new meds & additional testing. He wanted to see me again in a few months and not list me yet. Of course this will all be finalized for sure once the committee meets on Tuesday. I really enjoyed meeting with Dr. Palmer. He is very bright and had some amazing insight into the research they are doing at Duke. This meeting really reaffirmed my decision to come here.