So I went to my "activation" class yesterday. I had 8 vials of blood drawn, which was fun. They will do tissue typing and other blood work. Tissue typing will show how many antigens are in common with the potential donor kidney. The most important thing is my PRA (panel reactive antibody) test, which shows how many anti-human antibodies I have in the my body. You'd have a high PRA if you had a blood transfusion, a baby, a severe infection, or a transplant. My PRA should be very low (near 0% would be best) as I have had none of those.

Randy will begin his testing soon. The first and most important test is essentially the tissue typing. They'll combine our blood and see how reactive it is. This is called a crossmatch. We want to have a negative crossmatch.

After they work up my many vials of blood, they will place me on the UNOS transplant list. Now we just have to wait and see. If Randy gets all of his tests done soon, we could be looking at surgery sometime early next year. If he is not a match and I need a kidney from the list, I could be waiting for five years or so. Either way, I'm excited to get the ball rolling.