4th anniversary of donation

[CK]

I donated to my husband on January 31, 2012.  We went out last night to celebrate. My health has been fine, can't tell the difference with one kidney - my creatinine is .9 and has been for a couple years.  Everything is good for me at age 50, minor middle-age health concerns unrelated to kidney donation.  His health has been good, too -  the biggest issue being dealing with post-transplant diabetes, but overall he's doing great.  He's active as a volunteer firefighter at age 51, works full-time and we've done some traveling over the last year.

We were talking yesterday about how nervous I was the day before donation 4 years ago - but I never doubted my decision and still don't.  Hopefully we will get many more good years out of my little kidney, which we named "Janet" due to me texting my sister after surgery in a loopy post-anesthesia haze, and allowing my attempts to type "kidney"  to auto-correct before sending.   She was very confused to get a message about how the doctor said I had a very petite Janet. 

I've read some of the new information about the increased risk over time to me as a donor, but I still think it was worth it.  You can't control all future risk and despite some other serious stressors not related to the transplant happening in our lives, we've had a good four years.  I still don't feel like a hero.  My actions were selfish - I got to keep him around. 

When I was nervous about the surgery, I used to get myself through it by reminding myself that someday it would seem like so long ago that I donated, and here I am. 

[Clark]

Congratulations! Happy kidneyversary!

[Fr Pat]

     With regard to pre-op nervousness: At the Transplant Games in 2004 I had the pleasure of meeting Ron Herrick, the first living kidney donor in the history of the world, who had donated to his identical twin brother 50 years earlier (and the surgeon, Dr. Murray, was there too!) At the time of the surgery it was completely experimental, having never been tried in humans before. (This was before anti-rejection drugs, so it was only possible between identical twins.) The night before the surgery his sick brother sent a note to his hospital room saying: Get out. Go home. Too dangerous. He replied with a note saying: I'm here, and I'm staying. The transplant was a success, but I can only imagine the anxiety of going into donation surgery when it had NEVER been done before! (As an added note, his recipient brother later married one of his nurses and they had a couple of kids.)
    Fr. Pat

[elephant]

Many years of health and happiness to you both!

[Orchidlady]

Congratulations to you both!