A Thank You To My Kidney Donor(s) & Others

[Karol]

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A Thank You To My Kidney Donor(s) & Others

Posted on November 23, 2011

What’s kidney failure like?
Depressing answer.  Yet, I’ve been wanting to properly thank the people involved in rescuing me from it, so I felt like I should answer the question.
(deletes two paragraphs) No, I will leave it to your imagination.  It roils me to have written about this calamity so many times.  Kicking up the dust with writing somehow keeps the disease alive, if only mentally.  If you’re really interested in details you can scour my blog archives.  Summary:  it blows (kidney failure, not my blog archives).
Instead – casting Eeyore aside –  I really wanted this to be upbeat and full of hope, because I’m being given a new lease on life.  Being hopeful, I must note, takes an effort.  I wish it didn’t, because I realize the amazing good fortune I have, but when you’ve been down and kicked for so long, you wonder when things will turn around.  It’s not been fun to be in a situation where hope is dangerous . . . and it hasn’t just been the vile disease process, but also the ups and downs of the kidney transplant screening process.  And it’s been the oh-so-fun dialysis in the meantime!
s*** there I go again.  Back to the hope and the thankfulness!
There’s a host of people I should thank, but the donors are foremost in my heart.  It’s “donors” because there are two people giving up a kidney for me.  Since my donor, Laura, wasn’t an entirely perfect match for me, she’ll be donating to another person needing a kidney, while I will receive one from that person’s donor.  This way, kidney “life” will be optimized for everyone.
Thank you, Laura.  And thank you, Susan.  You are both love in action.  You are heroes and great role models.  You are inspiration to live a great life.  You are saviors.
Laura, you’ve been SO UPBEAT throughout.  I know it’s your personality but you must have not known upfront that the screening process would take forever.  I was careful to NOT tell you so you’d stay, but I know you would have anyway.  You did, and I thank you for your infectious joy in doing this harrowing thing.
I also must thank those who went through screening and didn’t pass.  Mom, Sheri, Lauren, and yes, even you, Jody, even though your silent desertion caused anguish and tribulation.  Your heart was in the right place.  Thanks also to all those who had wanted to be screened – Kristy, Amber, Amber, Wendy, Lori, Jessica, Ellen, Linda, Sue, Rebecca, JB, Danelle, and everyone else I’ve forgotten.  Screw that saying about good intentions.  I was impassioned by your intentions.
By now at the awards show, they’d be cueing up the music.  But I must also thank my family and friends.  I said in an earlier post that I have an embarrassment of riches in this category, and it’s true.  Thank you, everyone, for the support – the meals, the text messages and emails, the cards, the hospital visits, the blog comments, the re-tweets, and the love.
Thanks to Laura’s family, and to the family of my donor.  Your support of all of us . . . it means everything.
For all the dialysis nurses, you were angelic visitors in my crummy world.  Thank you.
Mom, thanks for setting your life aside for us for the last several years.  You’re amazing.
Finally – and I’m tearing up here – to my devoted wife, my everything . . . you have stood by me to hell and back.  I love you more than anything in this world.
As of this writing, it’s 13 days until the transplant.  As we move closer, my hope increases, and it’s all because of you.  Thanks – JT

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