Tag Archives: transplant

A big reason to celebrate!

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We got word that I AM NOW OFFICIALLY ON THE KIDNEY TRANSPLANT LIST.

This is good news. It means that I’m accruing time on the list, and I am now actively looking for a live donor.

In the next year to two years, my kidneys will fail thanks to kidney disease (acquired from my bout with Bacterial Meningitis 6 years ago). At that point I’ll wind up on dialysis, waiting for a kidney to become available. I’m grateful for the option of dialysis, but it comes with challenges and health risks of its own. So, the sooner I can get a transplant, the better.

The average wait time in Michigan can be 5-7 years for a donated kidney from a deceased donor. However, because of my other health issues left over from that whole incident, my transplant team has said they very strongly recommend a live donor kidney instead.

SO, for these reasons, Jeanne and I are asking for your help in spreading the word. If you’d be willing to share our search for a living donor with your community of family and friends, we’d greatly appreciate it. To learn more, you can go to Explore Transplant and get the information you need.

Finally, if you feel inclined and called to do so, you’re invited to consider becoming a living donor yourself! Thanks to the wonderful Pairing Program, your kidney wouldn’t even have to be a perfect match for me. It could match someone else, and I could get a better matched kidney in return! Of course this is a hugely sensitive and personal issue, and it’s simply not the right choice for many, many people, but if anyone out there thinks it might be something they’d consider, we’d be forever grateful! 🙂

If you’d like more specific info about donating a kidney, I’ll be having mine done at University of Michigan Hospital, and you can see their website about the donation process BY CLICKING HERE. Or, you can call the Living Donor Office at 1-800-333-9013.

And, of course, you can ask me if you have any questions! 🙂
Thanks, everyone, for reading this far and for caring. It means more than we’ll ever be able to express.

EDITED TO ADD: Wow, thanks so much for all the nice responses. For everyone asking, my blood type is A+, so compatible would be blood types A and O. However, with today’s Pairing Donor system, someone doesn’t necessarily have to match my blood type: Their kidney could be donated to someone else on the list, and in return I would get a kidney that best matched me!

Grateful for awesomeness…

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Something I haven’t talked about a lot online yet: I’m currently going through the evaluation process to get on the kidney transplant list. After years of not needing to be on dialysis, my kidney disease has almost reached the inevitable point of needing dialysis and, hopefully, a kidney transplant. Could be a year, could be two, but the process has begun. More info on that will come later. In preparation for that, I have been undergoing the evaluation process to determine if a transplant is feasible. We should know the results of that in a couple weeks.

This post, though, isn’t about me, it’s about the whole Kidney Transplant team at UofM hospital: they have been fabulous. Every single person I’ve dealt with, as I go through this evaluation process to determine if I can be listed on the transplant list, has been really wonderful. Helpful, patient with my questions, compassionate and personable.

I say this because I think awesomeness deserves to be recognized. This process, which has the potential to be monumentally daunting, is made more understandable and less scary by how good these people are at their jobs and how much care they take with each step. From the giant binder of information (that is SO well prepared), to the many phone calls checking in on me confirming appointments and easing any concerns, I (and I think Jeanne) have been put much more at ease by the reassuring calm and open discussions with the many staff people we’ve talked with.

It’s really energizing – seeing how much they care about getting it right, and helping each person to have every resource, every piece of information they need, and a clear path into and through this complicated and scary thing.

Today I sat through another several hours of tests, and the thing I realized is that everyone that I was working with, again, was operating with an amazing ever-present sense of empathy. How much information did I want? Or how little? Was I comfortable? Was I anxious? Was I clear on what was happening and why? What could they do to help?

As I was realizing this and watching them work, I started thinking about the season at Williamston Theatre (which is BASED around the idea of empathy this year), and how much the practices of empathy and compassion are able to change the world. We can see examples of it all around us, just as we can so clearly see the examples of people behaving without these traits.

So, this is a long way of working through this, and saying THANKS to the amazing transplant team I’ve been working with. We’ll know soon enough if the process bears fruit but, in the meantime, MY world has been made a little better by these people. And I’ve been reminded of how I want to impact the world as well.

Not bad for a cloudy Tuesday morning!