This, that, the good, the not so good

Image courtesy of livestrong.com

1. Stress-induced ischemia in the apex and apical midventricular anterior/anteroseptal segments.
2. Adequate LV systolic function post-exercise with LVEF of 54%.

Those are the printed interpretation of the results of the Myocardial Profusion Stress Test I recently underwent. Now, those did not sound so good. At first glance, the second one might be something positive because of the word ‘adequate’. Anything adequate must be good, right? But we do not know yet. The first one though is making me a little bit scared. Ischemia means inadequate blood supply to the heart muscle. It’s time to make that appointment with the cardiologist. Also in the report, "The stress EKG showed no significant ST-T changes." With my limited knowledge, that's a good thing. It means that no significant irregular rhythm was recorded in the ST segment points of the EKG graph.

Many questions are clouding my mind. The most obtrusive being, with a stress test result like this, will I qualify for a kidney transplant soon or do I have to go another procedure to clear up any blockage? I’m really praying that it is the former. I will have more information after I see my cardiologist. For know, it’s just prayers and crossed fingers. 

4 vials of blood serum were extracted from me and a potential donor yesterday. That’s right, I have a potential donor. A living, non-related, possible donor. Anyway, we submitted the samples so that they can be subjected to tissue typing and cross matching. Basically, the cross matching  procedure involves introducing the donor’s blood serum sample to that of the recipient’s, and see if there are any antigenic reaction from the recipient’s blood. A positive reaction means that the recipient blood recognizes the newly introduced blood as foreign and therefore begins to attack it in self defense. That is not good. It further means that the donor is not a suitable donor even if s/he has good kidneys. The recipient will reject the new kidney right after the transplant.

Now a negative match result is ideal. It means, there are no antigenic reactions and the donor is most appropriate. This is one of those tests where a negative result is what you should hope for. Tissue typing gives more detailed indicators if recipient and donor are compatible. It looks at the type of antigens of both and sees if there are similarities. If they are way different, then there is no match. So cross matching is easy to achieve but tissue typing is more complicated and has many factors and therefore more difficult to attain. All the information I am giving out here comes from own readings in my attempt to understand my condition better.

I got the results today. But I cannot divulge them yet since the NKTI Laboratory made a mistake of subjecting only my blood serum for tissue typing. Instead, what they performed were just my tissue typing and the cross matching of my and the potential donor’s blood. They did not charge, and do tissue typing for the donor. That means the results I have on hand are incomplete. I am a little bit upset about that oversight. I even asked the laboratory staff if he was sure about what he was charging. The doctor’s order was clear: tissue typing and cross matching for both recipient and donor. Also, with NKTI being the premier hospital for kidney transplant in the country, I’m sure this is a common procedure. How could they miss this? It’s exasperating. Now I have to ask the potential donor to again submit his/her blood serum. And with that, need another day of waiting for the results.

I was hoping to write a better ending to this post. But with what has happened, it is impossible.