Sometimes Jim there's a Sistine Chapel splattered on tenement stone

You may recall that the upshot of my trip to be assessed in Newcastle was that everything was ok to go ahead to be placed on the active transplant list apart from an anomaly with my kidneys. There has been some damage done to my kidneys by years on cyclosporin (to suppress my immune system).

So today I went to see a renal specialist, along with my sister who happens to be a renal nurse and also used to work with the consultant who saw me, where I got an ultrasound scan of my kidneys done and had a good long chat with the doctor about my situation.

The news is that the scan itself showed very little wrong structurally with the kidneys, although a more in depth report will follow, but from the first analysis of the scan there isn't anything like a blockage in my plumbing to account for the slight elevation in my kidney activity. This means that we can pretty firmly say that it is indeed the medications I have been on that have caused the damage there has been. This, you'll recall, is an issue because I would have to be put on large doses of the same drug post lung transplant and there's no point fixing my lungs only for my kidneys to fail.

Today's discussion though was very fruitful as we went through my entire drug regime looking for all the drugs that can cause kidney damage with the view of replacing the ones I'm currently on with some that are a little kinder to the kidneys. We found a few of those and this led to the greatest revelation of all from the consultant. According to him my kidney function shouldn't be a barrier to transplant at all, even at current levels. He has observed a trend where there are peaks and troughs in my creatinine levels (which roughly correspond to kidney function) and it just so happened that when I was tested in Newcastle it was at the peak of that cycle.

Of course the opinion of one consultant isn't necessarily going to completely change the opinion of the transplant co-ordinators but today's consultant said he was going to write to the transplant consultant (as well as all my many other consultants) to put the case forward strongly that I will indeed most likely be able to tolerate the post transplant drug regime.

Then came a discussion about whether the post transplant drug regime could in itself be changed. There are other drugs available to suppress the immune system, but cyclosporin (sometimes in tandem with another type) is the tried and tested route so it may be hard to get the transplant team to accede to such a plan. Still it's all food for thought for me and for the docs.

It might just be a baby step but I'll take any step forward as a positive right now.