Big chain and six week report

[rdr321]

  Today I went in to do my labs for my 6 week appointment. My transplant coodinator took me into her office and told me that the chain I started is now the second largest chain donation so far. And it is still going on. There is going to be a symposium about donation in Pasadena Ca and they want me to talk at it. There will be some of the recipients and  they want to meet me. One is a 23 year old who thought he would never get a kidney because he was 100% reactive. I am not even sure exactly sure what that means. Both the coodinator and I were in her office with tears in our eyes when she was telling me about it. And I had been laying around the house feeling like a worthless marshmallow for about 5.5 weeks.
    Now the report. At 5 weeks I stoped being tired and my incision did not hurt at all. So I decided to wash my truck. BAD IDEA. I repeat BAD IDEA. My incision has been hurting for almost 5 days now. I probably set the healing process back by a couple weeks. I don't think I did any more damage then maybe making more scar tissue on my muscles. I see the doc next week.
           Rick

[Clark]

Take care of yourself, Rick!  Best wishes for pain reduction and for your speaking opportunity.  Let us know if we can help.

[ohtobeahayes]

Congratulations, Rick!
You will love being at the event and getting to meet some of the people you've affected.  You have affected entire UNIVERSES!  Not only the people who have had a transplant, but their whole families, and everyone that they know who knows about it. Then there are the other donors in the chain, who have also donated to people they do not know, with gratefulness that their loved one received a kidney.  Everyone THEY know, their friends, families and people who have "only" heard about this, have been touched and affected by this. Entire worlds have shifted, and it just keeps continuing.
I don't know how it is for you, but for me, meeting the kidney chain I started was almost SO BIG that my head couldn't hold it. It still can't. It feels like I didn't do anything (being all healed etc helps, ;)  ) but I can see what I did when I look at what other people have done/are doing. People like you. I can see all the love, and all the magical connections that are now visible.  The HOPE that people feel hearing about it. People still waiting will hear about this and feel hope that they, too, one day, will receive the kidney they need. Quite literally, the waves of what you have done continue on forever and ever and ever, much further than you can see now. You are living proof that the world is a GOOD place, where love still rules.
Nice work! :)

Nicki

[lawphi]

100% reactive means that he had a prior failed transplant or blood transfusions that caused his body to create antibodies that would immediately attack 100% of the populations kidney and it would immediately be rejected.

Without you and plasmapheresis, this guy would likely not be alive in ten years or ever father a child.

My husband had a 94% PRA at 29. I could sit and tell you all day what you did for that man.