Okay, so I talked to the transplant nurse. She told me that they don't do the screenings ahead of time, because they would just have to repeat everything when the time came (the five years cancer-free mark). Apparently, things change and the test results could be different later on. Anyway, she said the letter was just for now and in 2010 I can contact them again.
She also put a little different spin on the whole requirement to wait until 5 years after the cancer. I'd always thought the reason behind it was that I would be too high a risk to waste their time and a healthy kidney on. But what she said made me think of it differently. She said, that because of the immune suppressing drugs, if there were any cancer even on the cellular level, then it could grow and spread more rapidly than otherwise and they wouldn't be able to stop it. The fear is that the transplant could hasten a cancer death so they want to be really sure no malignancies are still lurking. The "too big a risk" was really for me, not them. I no longer feel like I'm not worthy of a transplant, due to the cancer.
Well, that's the news from Natchitoches.
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