Quote:
Originally Posted by BlackEagle
Been praying, will continue to pray. Do they call you and tell you to come wait at the hospital when a potential heart comes available?
|
I was going to answer this in a pm but I thought I would do it publicly because alot of people wonder how this works.If someone doesnt want to read this they dont have to but I dont mind explaining to those who would like to know. Pre 1985 if you had the money you could speed up the process.But one thing good the government did is stepped in and made it a level playing field.They started the U OSN (United organ sharing Network).It is a naional database of all organ transplants.The US is divided in geographical sections and assigned a number.You are listed local and 500miles radius.We are in Indiana,ohio,michigan.They have 4hrs to get the heart out of the donor into the receipeint.It is stored in elecrolytes fluid to keep it from beating.When you get accepted for transplant there are several level.It goes like this. 1A.top of the list the most critical.1B critical but your at home waiting. 2A,2B,and so on.You usually dont get a heart unless your level 1A,or 1B.They offer the heart to the closest 1A if there are no matches it goes 2 1B.If it dont match any of them it gets offered out up to 500 miles radius.If it dont match any of them then it comes back local and startes at level 2.You get the point.Now it doesnt physically move to all those places just in the computer. Since my wife has a heartmate 11 device she has 30 days she can be a 1A at home and after that she has to be admitted to the hospital and have a Swan Gantz cathetir placed in her neck that goes into the chambers of the heart and measures the pressures in each chamber.Then the docs have to justify why their patient is on the top of the list every 2 weeks.They do that using the swan chatheter and the numbers on the machine .I hope that wasnt to long of an answer.