Part Twenty One: A Few More Weeks

This morning I got up, finished my 24-hour collection and then made my way over to the outpatient office to make the drop-off. It is days like this that I am grateful for living only a mile or so from the hospital.

At this point, all of the front desk people recognize me. They still have to go through the long drawn out process of "registering" me every time I go in. They ask me what my dad's birthday is... is he still working full time... am I the donor or the recipient. I have become somewhat frustrated with their crappy records system and hope that most of the problems that I have been having are related to the fact that my records seem to be kept under my dad's name.

In order to bill the charges to my dad's insurance, they have to put me in through his records. I'd like to think that if I were an actual patient, they wouldn't need to ask me the same questions over and over and over again. But who knows...

As usual, I was registered right away and only had a thirty second wait before my favorite blood sucking nurse came down the hall to get me. (I tried to pay attention to her name today... I think it was Krista.) At this point, I knew the routine pretty well. She handed me a cup and a disinfecting wipe for my private parts. I provided a glorious urine sample. She stuck my arm, drew a little blood, and I was out the door.

The next time I will see her will be a couple of days before the surgery. My dad and I will have to go in and have more bloodwork and EKGs and chest x-rays and stuff done to make sure we're still okay for surgery.

As I left, she said... "See you in a few weeks."

That was kind of scary.