Friday, August 19, 2011

Very nearly there....

After the extra week delay, I headed back to the Alfred yesterday to find out whether I was accepted onto the waiting list.

The good news is that I will be on the waiting list very soon... but there were some anomalies in my original blood tests so I had to have them taken again while I was there yesterday.

The original tests were:
Hepatitis B surface antibody, surface antigen and core antibody, HepC, HIV1&2,
CMV IgG, EBV JgG ,Herpes Zoster IgG (discuss with consultant if patient on
Intragram therapy)


Did you notice at the bottom there, it specifies to discuss with consultant if patient on Intragam therapy?


With the anitbody tests, they're trying to determine whether I've been exposed to any of these viruses. When you're exposed to a virus, your blood will make antibodies against it to protect you..... well that is, unless you have panhypogammagobulinemia like me.

Over the years, I've probably had close to 150 infusions of intragam, and each infusion contains antibodies from a pool of thousands of blood donors.

So, even though I haven't really been exposed to any of these viruses, my blood is giving confusing results.


The other very interesting thing that I learned yesterday is that once you're on the active waiting list, bloods are taken every month and sent off all around Australia, so that when a donor is found, the tissue matching can take place immediately.

They're going to consult with my immunologist on how to time the four weekly bloods and my three weekly intragam infusions to prevent a confusing result.

I've signed the consent form for the transplant surgery, and now I'm just waiting for the new blood test results to come back, and then I go back and sign some more forms, and join the actual active waiting list.

I should have more news very soon.



5 comments:

Leonie said...

That is awesome. I so hope they can work out the timing on your bloods so the results aren't confusing everything. Good luck :-)

Fiona said...

Great news, Cam. Hope they get those blood tests sorted out soon.

trudi@maudeandme said...

Great news!

Jennifer Rose said...

thats great news :) hopefully a schedule for taking blood works out, i didn't know that about the infusions. its really interesting actually :) pain in the butt, but i still think its kind of cool

Selina said...

They'll work it all out Cam and you'll be on that active waiting list in no time at all. It's so hard to say "congratulations", because it is good news and all, but it's kind of a weird thing to be congratulating you for. Oh, I hope you know what I mean!

What I mean is, yay, go Cam!!