Before the blood tests, although often on the same day, comes a "chat". 

Because we had all offered to be donors we had a meeting which consisted of; the transplant co-ordinator Alison Hansford, my mum, Joel, my two sisters and myself.  My older brother couldn't be there because he had to work, but personally I think he just wanted to get the gory details from one of us (blokes are a bit squeamish sometimes.)  Anyway the chat is supposed to tell you all the major aspects of being a donor.  Most of it was no surprise to me because I had done a little bit of research on the internet, there were a few little new bits of information. 

The chat is a bit daunting, and so are the blood tests, but in retrospect they really aren't much to write home about.  The transplant co-ordinator will tell you that it is a major operation (this is for open, not keyhole surgery), requiring eight to twelve weeks off work, that it will take you a year before you're 100% again and that 4% of all live donors will feel some pain a year after the operation.

Initially you won't be able to do much picking up - so you'll have to have help around the house or stay with someone. 

You may also be told, as we were, (and you can imagine the effect on three women of child-bearing age) that Portsmouth Health Authority did not recommend that any women give a kidney if they plan to have children.  This was something that I had not read anywhere else, and I must admit, it really threw me.  This was the moment that I really wavered.  Before you get upset (as I did) every other scrap of information we came up with said that it was not a problem.  If you do have children after you have given a kidney you will be monitored very closely, because they will worry that you have a higher risk of high blood pressure and pre-eclampsia, but according to research that we did in 2002 - nobody who had given a kidney has ever had a problem.  I would go along with waiting a year till you get pregnant after you give a kidney though.

It was at the chat that I realised the full extent of my older sister's problem with needles.  Alison started to explain to us the process of testing a live kidney donor.  First there are the blood tests, then a series of non-invasive tests; a chest X-ray, ultrasounds, an ECG, more blood tests (to test for HIV and Hepatitis, which are not tested in the first round), some really fun urine tests, and if all of those are hunky dory, then comes the fun one.  The last stage (although don't be fooled because they repeat all the other tests right before surgery,) is the angiogram (also sometimes referred to as an arteriogram.)  Now I have always thought that an angiogram was for your heart, so was a bit confused, but this one is for your kidneys.  A local anaesthetic is applied to your leg, and a needle inserted into the main artery running down your leg (the femoral artery), the needle is then pushed up your aorta, which is the main artery which runs down your body until it reaches your kidneys.  (With me so far?) 

At the mention of sliding a needle through a vein my older sister was in tears.  Alison, a little perturbed, asked her if she wanted to step outside for a minute.  My older sister said that it probably wouldn't help.  Apparently even very large men, with tattoos, have gone white at this point.  Personally this stuff doesn't make me queasy (which is just as well.)  Anyway, once it reaches your kidneys, and, I forgot to mention, you will be lying on a radiology table, with cameras over you, a dye is injected which makes all the blood vessels in your kidney visible to the radiologist (this bit is actually way cool - I have very attractive kidneys - sorry, kidney, but more on that later.) 

At this point the doctors will basically tell you if it's a go or not, because they will have all the information they can have about your kidneys before cutting you open.  My older sister was really white by this point, but Alison had to describe the op itself. 

In order to remove the kidney the surgeons will have to cut through a lot of very important muscle (hence the not picking things up - but let me just warn you, it is also important not to reach for anything too far away!)  Also, they may have to take a rib.  I was lucky because my wonderful surgeon managed to avoid this by using the Sudan-style technique, but I was sure after the op that they told me they had taken a rib.  It tells you something about the level of pain that I thought I could feel where the rib had gone.  Then they cut the blood vessel to the kidney and the tube that takes urine from the kidney to the bladder and hopefully stitch you up nice and tight.  Scary, eh?

The operation is much more extreme for the donor than the recipient, because when the kidney is transplanted they put it back in the most convenient place, so no cutting through yards of muscle, no taking ribs out, no squashing lungs up.  The kidney is inserted in the lower abdomen and hooked up to the bladder and the blood supply through the same major artery that runs down the leg (the femoral artery).  This means that the recipient may well be up and about before you, and will annoy the hell out of you by being much healthier than you to start with (trust me you will so want to slap them when they're hogging down three times as much food as you in front of you.)

So this is the chat, this is what they tell you - the rest of this website is what they don't tell you.