Potentially live

'Potential Live Kidney Donor' this is the label that they put on everything I have done at the hospital - bloods, ECG, CT scan, more bloods, lung capacity test, more bloods - I always get the same label. It does make you feel quite special as you pop round to each department and hand your referral card in. They always ask who you are donating to and what the story is and it is fun to tell people. It doesn't always seem real though and if it seems real it doesn't always feel like you are a part of it - almost like you are playing the role of someone else doing this slightly crazy, wonderful thing.

I think the hospital have cottoned onto the fact that getting Tara and me to do anything together is unwise and if they hadn't already they did after Thursday. We both had to go in for pre-op stuff and the legal conversation (the bit where they check I am not being paid or coerced to do this). Unfortunately, whether it was adrenalin or nerves, both of us were in a bit of a silly mood - it started in the blood room because the radio was playing an Ace of Base tune which resulted in us both quoting lines from Pitch Perfect and larking about much to the bemusement of the blood staff.

Then there was the disastrous 45 minute wait in radiology for an X-Ray. By the time the nurse called me and gave me my gown we were on a self induced hospital high and in no state to be left alone in a changing room to assemble ourselves ready for chest pictures. So, when the woman finally called for Sara Timms I may have laughed so hard the front of my blue shift fell open and I gave the waiting area a full view of my little cherry bakewells. Ooops.

The legal interview which followed shortly after went really well and it is a good reminder of the swings and roundabouts of this whole process. We went from giggling in the blood room to having a serious chat about the odds of keyhole surgery converting to open and a quick tour of the ward full of poorly people. Rose had a transplant going on in surgery on Thursday and after she had given us the wash stuff to bring home to keep MRSA at bay she had to dash off for 'cross clamping' of the kidney being donated by a young man to his mother that very second. What Rose and the rest of the team at the hospital do is amazing. Fact.

She stuck our names in the checking in book before she dashed off. It would be helpful if this whole process stopped feeling like a mini-break and started feeling like major surgery.

The one thing Tara and I are both agreed on - we're bloody glad we are in this together.