The not so best phone call

We had wine with dinner, tonight, which is a very, very civilized way to end the week, even if all you're having is pepperoni pizza. ("Pepperoni?" My husband said, "You haven't ordered a pepperoni pizza in all the time I've known you." Well, that's my prerogative). Today started with a nasty gram from the boss: we all come in too late, leave too early and take too many frivolous breaks. For those (read: almost all) of us who come early, stay late and work through lunch 4 out of 5 days a week-we were pissed. Pissed enough to renew my BLS and see if the hospital down the street is hiring. Then by lunch time we were all friends again. Mostly.

Worst of all is that I had to write the "You better _____ by _____ or else" letters. Even though I deal with Post Transplant patients, we are all expected to pitch in with maintaining the wait list. Once you get on the wait list, for a kidney or panc, it may be years before you get an organ. In that time, the patients, depending on their health and needs, need to continue getting annual cardiac clearance, send routing labs in and come into clinic to be re-evaluated. Someone has to actually go through the list, figure out who needs what and when so that, when the time comes to transplant them, we don't suddenly realize that they need a pacemaker, ilio-femoral bypass or that their insurance has run out. So, driven by threats via email from teh boss, I had to scour a few charts and see why folks aren't keeping all their records up to date.

So here's the deal: folks get referred to us from their doctors when they need a transplant. Hopefully, they aren't on dialysis yet, maybe it's just looming large in their future. So they come in, meet with all sorts of professionals-surgeons, nephrologists, the financial coordinator, the social worker and last and most decidely least, the transplant coordinator. Then, once a week, we sit down as a group and decide who is eligible for an organ and who isn't. That's probably a whole 'nother post.

Once they're on the list, depending on age, health status and circumstances, they have to come in once a year or every other year for a re-eval. Annual retesting is also required, mostly cardiac testing. Folks who are on dialysis 3 times a week are getting reminded often when they need stuff and monthly blood samples are sent in, but the pancs are a different story-more on their own, so to speak. And, let me say, that the majority of people get things done in a timely fashion. For those that don't, we call doctor's offices for results, call the patient and remind them of what needs to be done and so on. I've been calling one woman for 5 months to get a stress test done or we can't call her in for a pancreas, should one become available. Remember, diabetes causes major heart problems. Another guy said he was going for a stress test in July. In August, his mother answered the phone and said he wasn't available. Now his numbers(all 3) have changed and I don't know how to get a hold of him, so I Fed-Ex'd a letter to his house, not sure if he still lives there.

I don't want to write the letter. You have 30 days to contact us or you're out. But, realistically, it does not speak well to his ability to take care of a donated organ (not that I'd be able to reach him I can't call him). The follow up is intense. We should have a slogan, "You get a new kidney, but your ass is ours!" Seriously, it's been 6 months and some of these people are like family, already.

ed note: started Atkins Monday, so that's the last pizza I'll see for a while. Pray for me.