For those of you still keeping up on this board...

I am scheduled for my bladder augment surgery on Tuesday, July 8th early morning.  My family and I will be making the trip to Cedars-Sinai on the 7th to have my pre-op prep work done. 

In case you don't remember (or don't know), I need to have my bladder augmented before I can have the transplant.  If this is not done, my "new" kidney will not survive.  It's not a common surgery to have pre-transplant, but in some cases it is necessary. 

In explaining the basic procedure, the doctors will be taking a small piece of my small intestine and after cutting open the bladder, attacthing the small intestine like a cup as part of the bladder.  This allows for the bladder to hold more urine.  The reason behind this is so it takes pressure off the kidney and so the urine won't back up into the kidney and destroy it.  This is what was happening to me and caused the renal failure.  It is really more complicated than this explanation but that's the gist of it.

Thanks again for everyone's support and I will do my best to update this as things happen.  If it is requested by many, I will update this board daily (as my computer will allow me) while in recovery at Cedars.