I'm over here in Australia for about three weeks. The first few days were spent with my older brother, Robert, and his wife, Jenny. Now I'm in Brisbane at the World Congress of Positive Psychology - https://ippaworldcongress.org/ - then I have a few days with (another) James, a dear old friend - and finally I run a two day training workshop for the psychedelic therapists on a research trial using MDMA-assisted therapy for community trauma after flooding. It's a busy time!

    Sapere aude!  Dare to use your own intelligence!  This is the battle cry of the Enlightenment.  Immanuel Kant

                  God-speed ... To heart-opened light-burst ... Love-drenched ... Out-breath, walls melt                                       To the tender darkness ... Mithril to wings.    Willie Grieve (a friend sending good wishes for the journey).

Gosh, 'nerves' have come in a bit sooner than I would have expected.  Lying in bed this morning, early, I felt that hard-to-describe collection of sensations ... quite a full, slightly aching feeling in my chest, and in my belly also a background sense of fullness ... and unease, caution ... and almost like a distant, silent firework display intermittently lighting up the horizon ... a play of slight sensations in my gut that quieten as I internally turn to look at them.  I recognise this feeling.  It's what I experienced at times in the lead-up to my kidney donation operation a bit over two years ago.  OK, in three weeks today I'm due to take my first psychedelic trip for nearly 50 years (I took a dozen or so LSD trips between the ages of 19 and around 24) ...

"Qualitative research has a rich tradition in the study of human social behaviour and cultures. Its general aim is to develop concepts which help us to understand social phenomena ... Qualitative approaches have particular potential in psychiatry research, singularly and in combination with quantitative methods."  Stephen Agius

"The brains of human beings seem built to process stories better than other forms of input"   Thomas Newman, Professor of Epidemiology & Biostatistics

I have written a series of blog posts about the "journey" of kidney transplantation, starting with "Kidney donation: why it's well worth considering" & "Kidney donation: what are the risks?" to the more recent "Kidney donation: the operation & first few postoperative days" & "Kidney donation: more on postoperative management".

I have written a series of blog posts about my recent experience of donating a kidney ... the last was "Kidney donation: the operation & first few postoperative days".  My hope is that these posts will be useful for other would-be kidney donors & their families ... and some of the posts (for example this one) may also be of help for people facing surgery more generally.  As Kortram & colleagues highlighted in their 2014 paper on "The need for a standardized informed consent procedure in live donor nephrectomy: a systematic review" - "Procedures vary greatly between centers, and transplant professionals vary in the information they disclose.

I've woken early.  Lying here I feel an unfamiliar hollow pressure in my gut.  What is this?  Fear?  Anxiety? Tension?  "Tense apprehension" seems to fit.  I'm lying here in the early hours of the morning, a hollow tense apprehension in my belly.  And it isn't surprising.  Pretty normal in fact as I move closer & closer to major surgery.  Consciously.  By my own decision.  On this journey, travelling down the "kidney donation river", I can hear the roar of the approaching rapids.  Surgery soon.  It's a pretty standard, basic, healthy response to tense a bit as I move towards the crux, possibly the most intense section of this "donation river".  And I don't have to tighten the rest of my body around the belly apprehension.  I can let go, loosen in my arms, my face.  It's OK. Nothing to do right now.

I'm due to donate a kidney soon, and I have been writing about what's involved - see "Kidney donation: why it's well worth considering", "Kidney donation: what are the risks?" and "Kidney donation: preoperative preparation & facing challenges generally - values are central".  Primarily these posts are for other donors, but aspects of what I write are also relevant for facing challenges more generally as well.