I’ve meandered back and forth on this, tell or don’t tell.. write or don’t write… and it was yesterday that made up my mind for me. I was thinking about how daunting the process could look from the outside, and how much I wished there was a no nonsense, no bullshit person who had been through it that I could talk to.
I’m on the path to being a living organ donor. I need to lose weight (no one had to directly tell me this, I already knew before yesterday’s very direct and pointed looks by the lecturer) and I need to go through what feels like a crapload of hoops (though I freely acknowledge that the recipient is going through a whole lot more and way more invasive ones).
There are no guarantees, I have no timelines at this point. I have done my research, days and weeks worth of it, and yesterday I attended the first orientation.
It was held in one of those overly bright auditoriums with a way too long PowerPoint (91 freakin slides), an overly cheerful nurse coordinator, and a dour social worker. Most of the other attendees had the perfectly blank faces of dolls, and one guy I could swear fell asleep during the two and a half hours we listened.
There are 100,000 people on the UNOS list for a kidney right now. It takes between four and six years to get a deceased donated kidney that will live for roughly ten years. A living donated kidney survives longer, for about fifteen. There are plenty of folks who beat the odds one way or another- I’m just passing on the numbers I was given. For a living donor, yes, it’s major surgery, with recovery time of 3 to 4 weeks with the recipient’s insurance covering costs. It can be done via a laparoscopic procedure, so minimal invasion and scarring.
This is an intensely personal and difficult decision. I’m not trying to tell anyone else how to make it, I’m only telling you how I made it- and I don’t feel particularly noble or whatever it is I’m guess I’m supposed to feel. The only word I have for what I’m feeling since yesterday is determined.
I was really young, probably too young, when events unfolded in such a way to bleakly demonstrate the difference between quality of life and quantity of life. Also, me being apparently ahead of the curve, I got to go through a midlife upheaval really quite early in the scheme of things.
Why do I bring this up? Well, for one, I became pretty firm in the belief that one has to exude all the kindness and joy and humor and care and love they can if one hopes to find it out in the world. And I believe that just surviving isn’t enough of a reason to stick around. We aren’t here to survive… we’re here to live.
If you spend enough time with folks who have dialysis as a part of their day to day lives- the difference is real clear real quick.
Stay tuned for next time- Living Donor Champions or Dialing for Kidneys!
Curiouser and Curiouser 