After an amazing sleep-in and huge breakfast, we headed over to TGH for our appointment with the anesthesiologist, Dr. Karen McRae at noon. Let me just say, fascinating appointment. She described absolutely everything that will happen from how they retrieve donor organs to how they do the operation and threw in tidbits of interesting information. For instance, did you know that hearing is the most difficult sense to block once you are put to sleep? This is why you will hear rare accounts of people “remembering” their surgery—it is because they overheard something during their surgery. In order to avoid this type of memory, tx patients are given “amnesia” drugs after—erasing your memory, though it would have been cooler if they did it Men In Black flashy pen styles.

After this I prepared mentally for the dreaded MUGA scan, which my Cystic Sista, HArmstrong (I’ll just refer to her as H), had already warned me about. The MUGA scan determines how well your heart can handle stress, which is obviously very important for such a huge operation. H was not kidding, the test was hard! The first part was deceivingly easy, all I had to do was lie there while they injected radioactive tracer into an IV in my arm. They took pictures with a giant camera for about 30 minutes--the technician made a corny joke about them treating me like a pawn when I am a Bishop. Then came the second part of the test, which was designed by the devil. While lying down (and with the giant camera on top of me) I had to pedal (up to 40 on a gage… she originally said 50, but I couldn’t make it there) for as long as I could. Well, ladies and gents, pathetically enough I only made it for about one minute. I wasn’t pouring with sweat or anything, but I was soooo out of breath and I felt my heart thumping in my ears (also they told me to stay as still as possible, which meant I had to grip the side of the table because my body weight alone is not enough to keep the pedals from pushing me up…).

So I think the exercise portion of the MUGA succeeded at making me feel like a failure, as exercise tests usually do. Maybe I would have done better if I had my oxygen (for some reason they couldn’t supply it for me there…) or maybe not. In any case I am glad that is over and done with! I had a massive throbbing headache right after the test and for the remainder of the afternoon.

Before I left TGH I did one last blood test as a token of my appreciation (only three vials this time) to check PRA levels in my blood. This just checks for your immunity to other people (and I think other things too, but I can’t remember at this point.)

Back home tonight and I have Thursday off! All the ‘hard’ tests are officially over.