- Joined
- Sep 9, 2004
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- 7,132
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I had something happen that literally I had never heard of over the weekend: the proverbial 1am call from a local hospital that the "Donor Team" had arrived and waiting for me to begin.
My first thought of course was fevered hallucination/dream. I stared blankly into darkness of my bedroom with literally no clue what the guy on the phone was even talking about let alone what he wanted me to do.
I spoke softly to not wake my entire house: "Um what do you want?" Stranger's response "We need you to get suited up and get into OR with the donor team." Tired, fighting back a cold I was trying to recover from, and completely out of it, I responded "Yes, I hear you, but what is my role?" Stranger: "We want you to do wet reads on the organs."
I didn't even know how to respond to that. "Wet reads"? Like cytology preps? On a dead person? Or a dying person? Like a cytology autopsy one organ system at a time?
I was livid at this point and I barked back: "WHO ARE YOU?" Stranger: "Donor Network." Yah, I figured that but I need to get a name to know who I was going to hit with the taser and brass knuckles when I did finally wake up and go in.
I ended up doing frozen sections, awake from 1am to about 6am. I was relatively calm being exhausted out of my mind at that point. I just wanted to crawl in a hole and/or kill someone. On top of this, they swept in like Homeland Security and collected up the specimens, the frozen blocks, slides and hand written note of the reports. All the evidence of me even doing something was all gone, making it even more surreal.
I slipped back home somehow but like a drunk 20-something year old at a Stanford Frat Party literally have no relocation of how I got back into my bed. I went to work today having almost forgot the whole thing before I got call from the "Donor Network" asking me for final diagnoses. I responded that I would have their diagnoses written up along a sweet and savory treat in the back of the parking lot if they met me there...
Now, is this for real? Are we supposed to be at the beckon call of some Team USA World Police Organ Squad and "take one for 'Murica" because some private company which gets a pass to legally sell organs on the transplant ebay needs to ensure the relative quality of their products?
Im still unsure of how to process this...anyone? Bueller?
Is this common and someone I have just never been hit in all the years I have been out?
My first thought of course was fevered hallucination/dream. I stared blankly into darkness of my bedroom with literally no clue what the guy on the phone was even talking about let alone what he wanted me to do.
I spoke softly to not wake my entire house: "Um what do you want?" Stranger's response "We need you to get suited up and get into OR with the donor team." Tired, fighting back a cold I was trying to recover from, and completely out of it, I responded "Yes, I hear you, but what is my role?" Stranger: "We want you to do wet reads on the organs."
I didn't even know how to respond to that. "Wet reads"? Like cytology preps? On a dead person? Or a dying person? Like a cytology autopsy one organ system at a time?
I was livid at this point and I barked back: "WHO ARE YOU?" Stranger: "Donor Network." Yah, I figured that but I need to get a name to know who I was going to hit with the taser and brass knuckles when I did finally wake up and go in.
I ended up doing frozen sections, awake from 1am to about 6am. I was relatively calm being exhausted out of my mind at that point. I just wanted to crawl in a hole and/or kill someone. On top of this, they swept in like Homeland Security and collected up the specimens, the frozen blocks, slides and hand written note of the reports. All the evidence of me even doing something was all gone, making it even more surreal.
I slipped back home somehow but like a drunk 20-something year old at a Stanford Frat Party literally have no relocation of how I got back into my bed. I went to work today having almost forgot the whole thing before I got call from the "Donor Network" asking me for final diagnoses. I responded that I would have their diagnoses written up along a sweet and savory treat in the back of the parking lot if they met me there...
Now, is this for real? Are we supposed to be at the beckon call of some Team USA World Police Organ Squad and "take one for 'Murica" because some private company which gets a pass to legally sell organs on the transplant ebay needs to ensure the relative quality of their products?
Im still unsure of how to process this...anyone? Bueller?
Is this common and someone I have just never been hit in all the years I have been out?