Have you ever thought about being an organ donor? I haven't. Sure, my driver's license says I'm an organ donor, but that wouldn't happen until after I die so it's not something I ever really out much thought into. That all changed for me a couple of weeks ago.
Sometime last year, I saw a post on someone's Facebook page. It was from a gentleman who had a son who needed a kidney transplant. He was asking my friend to please share his information in hopes of finding a donor. I had no idea who this person was, but I figured it couldn't hurt to reach out and get more information. I knew nothing about kidney donation, but I emailed the man and asked for more information on how I could be tested to see if I was a match for his son. I never heard anything back, and never thought about it again.
A couple of weeks ago, I came across a story that a local news station here in Jacksonville had shared on their Facebook page. It was a story about a father in Georgia who us in stage 5 kidney failure. He and his family reached out through social media in hopes of finding a donor. Within minutes of reading the story, I found myself sending an email to his wife to find out who I needed to contact to be tested. I had no idea who this family was, but their story touched my heart, and I just felt this was something I was supposed to do. A couple of days later I received an email back from the wife with the contact information for the transplant hospital in Atlanta. I was so touched that she took the time to personally respond to me. First thing that Monday morning, I called Emory hospital. Right away they knew who I was calling about. This story became so widespread that Emory was flooded with calls. They took down my contact information and said someone would call me back to start the interview process. In the meantime, I was in contact with the wife, and she provided some paperwork that the hospital would be going over with me during the initial call. I filled it out and sent it back in right away, in hopes of speeding up the process. After a couple days and still not hearing back, I reached out to the wife to see if she had any insight on how long it should be until I hear from someone. She shared with me that the hospital felt very optimistic that they have found a match from the number of people they had already interviewed, which is amazing news for this family! She suggested that if this was something I really wanted to do, I could reach out to Emory to see about becoming an anonymous donor for someone else on the list that I might be a match for. I filled out some additional paperwork to get that process started. Then I started having questions. With this particular family, it sounds like I would have been able to go through a lot of the testing here in Jacksonville, and then travel to Atlanta for the actual surgery. I wasn't sure if that would be the process if I was an anonymous donor. I reached out to Emory with my questions, and was told that I would need to do all of my testing and appointments in Atlanta, which means I would need to make several trips there. Atlanta is only a few hours away, but it would difficult for me to have to keep taking time off work to travel to Atlanta. It just didn't seem like an ideal situation.
At this point, I started asking myself if I was serious about this, and why I wanted to do this. The only reason I could come up with is that I have this overwhelming feeling that I am meant to do this. Maybe I'm crazy. Maybe this is God showing me the path I'm meant to take. Your guess is as good as mine! All I know is that when I read the story about the family in Georgia, I knew immediately that I wanted to do this. There was not even the tiniest bit of hesitation or doubt in my mind. Honestly, I don't think I've ever been so sure of anything in my life. I find that I've always struggled with what I want to do with my life, and what my passion is. It wasn't until I moved to Jacksonville and started discovering and getting involved in different volunteer opportunities throughout the city that I realized my passion is giving and helping others. I'm truly happiest when I'm giving to others, without expecting anything in return. This certainly hasn't always been the case throughout my life, and I still have a lot of work yet to do, but I'd like to think I've grown a lot as a person over the years, and I know now what's truly important in life.
Now that I've made my decision, and I'm 150% sure this is what I want to, it's time to make this happen! I'm (hopefully) going to be a living kidney donor, and I'm sooooo excited about it!! I decided that looking for a place a little closer to home would be the best idea, and it turns out the Mayo Clinic here in Jacksonville has a transplant program. I talked with them earlier this week. The donor coordinator is out this week, but I was able to talk to someone and they explained a little bit about the process. A lot of it I already knew about because I've been doing lots of research the past couple of weeks, but basically I will start by calling the coordinator on Monday to discuss everything with her and schedule my testing. There will be 4-5 days of testing, which includes 24 hour blood pressure monitoring, urine testing, lots of blood testing, chest X-ray, glucose testing, CT angiogram, psychological exam and the list goes on and on and on. They will need to make sure that my body and my insides will be able to have a laparoscopic surgery, because that is the only type they perform there. They'll need to make sure I'm not as risk for any disease that could affect the recipient down the road, and most importantly they need to test my blood & tissues to see if I'm a suitable match for anyone on the donor list. My blood type is the universal donor, so that's a promising sign that I'll be a match. This will be a completely anonymous donation, meaning I may never know who the recipient is or ever meet them, unless we mutually agree that we would like to meet. I would absolutely love to meet them, but I'm also ok with not knowing who they are. Even though this is a major surgery, living with one kidney shouldn't affect my life in any way. There shouldn't be any issues if I ever get pregnant, I should be back to work 2 weeks after surgery, and able to get back to exercising and my normal activities shortly after that. That doesn't sound too bad of an exchange for saving a life! I'm excited to speak with the donor coordinator on Monday and see when I can start scheduling my testing.
I've shared my decision with my parents and siblings, as well as a handful of other people. I have everyone's support, which is very important to me. As excited as I am about this now, I'm sure there will come a time where I'm going to nervous and scared out of my mind, so it's reassuring knowing I have people to support me. I decided to dust off my old blog, and use it to document my journey. Not only am I doing this to be able to share with my family and friends, but also as an outlet for my thoughts and feelings as I'm going through this experience. As I've been doing research, I've come across a lot of donor blogs, and it was really great to hear from other people who donated. I hope that mine can do the same for anyone else out there who is considering kidney donation.
