This was really nice not having to worry about a taxi to and from the hotel.
The hotel was kind enough to check me in even though I was about 4 hours early. I immediately walked about a mile to get lunch, enjoying looking at the area of Georgetown as I walked. I really liked the buildings and the detail in the architecture.
After lunch, I was only another mile and a half from the White House, so I figured why not, and walked there enjoying more of the scenery along the way. At the White House, there was some protest going on, which was interesting. People chanting and yelling with a megaphone at Obama. 
I walked back to the hotel and was pretty much done for the day.
Exam Day: Woke up early and had breakfast down in the Starbucks on campus. At 9:00 I met someone from the hospital and they took me over for my physical exam. Sucking more blood out of me like Dracula, they took 11 tubes this time (this makes 21 tubes total so far) and checked glucose, platelets, potassium, and three pages of acronyms that I don't remember what they mean now.... they said all were normal to excellent. One final check again for diseases and the donation will officially be scheduled. It will take about 2 or 3 days to get those last results. All previous blood work was fine, so unless I picked up something in the last couple weeks (don't think so!) then I expect this last check to be fine as well. They also did UA to check ketones and other stuff, and said that everything looked good.
Then they did an EKG and I asked what they were looking for here. They said that they need to be sure that the heart muscles are functioning well and that the valves are closing properly. All of this is to know that your body will perform well when hooked up to the machine for the donation. He went into detail about other things they were needing to see, but I already forgot what the names of things were.
They said my heart was working great! As I mentioned before, a great thing about going through this process is finding out exactly what condition your body is in.I was able to find out that the patient that I'm helping is international. This makes me want to know even more about who they are and where they are from. They also told me that my match was 9 out of 10 markers. Human leukocyte antigen (HLA) typing is used to match donors with patients. This is not the same as ABO blood typing. HLA is a protein – or marker – found on most cells in your body. Your immune system uses HLA markers to know which cells belong in your body and which do not. I asked what is acceptable, and they said typically doctors would prefer at least 8 out of 10 markers to match, so I said 9 is ok then and they replied, 9 is more than just ok, it's great.
They discussed with more detail about the procedure and the filgrastim injections leading up to the donation. Most people will feel aches in the pelvic area and sometimes clavical as these areas have higher concentrations of stem cells. They informed me to keep an eye on any pains in the left rib cage area where my spleen is. I had read quite a bit already about this whole process and was familiar with limited cases of enlarged spleen due to the filgrastim injections. They said 3 patients out of over 20,000 donations had this issue, and all were admitted and returned to normal health. I don't think I'm worried about it, but it's good to know anything that I should be looking out for.
So then I returned home that evening and will begin the injections in just 9 more days, as long as the last lab results look good. Still very much looking forward to doing this. Everyone at the hospital were very nice and understand that it's a special thing to be matched, and that it's also a good thing for someone to go through with the donation. I just don't see why someone would not donate if they were found to match someone. Stay tuned, more updates soon!
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