My personal journey of becoming a potential kidney donor began at the beginning of October. By the time the initial assessment was completed and I told the transplant nurse that I wanted to proceed with the testing, six weeks had passed. The holidays were approaching and my plate was filling up with all of the normal things that happen during that time of year, so I was clear to the scheduler at the hospital that I wouldn't be able to come in for testing until after Christmas. I felt a bit selfish about the request since I knew my friend had now been on dialysis for several weeks, a process that left him attached to a machine that cleansed his blood for hours a day, five days a week. Truthfully, however, I had hoped to be further along in the process by this point but, despite the fact that transplants are life-saving, the transplantation process is not a matter of life or death in the grand scheme of hospital priorities. Heart attack, cancer, aneurisms, broken bones, concussions, all of those things that need immediate care are the energy that fuels hospitals. The constant flow of the dangerously ill is what feeds the machine of health care. Kidney transplants are serious but not usually emergent so we wait, while those in need of dialysis get it and those of us on the other end wait patiently for our turn to help.
I never really asked why my friend needed a kidney. Even though I was literally going to be giving a part of myself to him, it felt too intimate to ask why he needed it, what medical problem he was facing that caused his kidneys to fail. The truth of the matter was that it simply didn't matter. What mattered, in the most immediate way was that he was in need and he asked. I simply answered. Why I answered with "yes" is a something that maybe even I won't understand. It felt as though I had been driven to a spot in the road and recognized a strange place as my future home and asked to be let off there. Though unfamiliar, it felt comfortable to me and so I decided to drop anchor in this spot for a while. It wasn't so consciously done as a lesson but I knew there were lessons to be learned in the process so I opened myself up to that as well.
Thanksgiving approached and I waited for news of the scheduling of my two days of tests. Then it was almost Christmas and I still waited. I made several calls and was told that they were working on it. I understood that scheduling not just me but any number of surgeons, social workers, physicians, labs, nurses and procedure rooms must take some skill so I waited patiently, hoping to have this part over with as soon as possible so I could make my final decision. I waited and waited, then I got the call.
My appointments, they told me, were scheduled for the 5th and 6th of January and I could see the appointments online on my personal chart. I would, in addition, be getting a box which included instructions and other information. I wrote down everything they told me and got online, wondering to myself mostly why instructions needed to be sent in a box. Suddenly my chart was populated with two dozen appointments, crammed into two days, back to back with no time in between. Meetings with doctors, x-rays, CAT scans, blood tests, exams and informative meetings with the transplant coordinator. Suddenly, everything seemed very real. What I had agreed to do in the abstract was beginning to feel imminent. I won't pretend there wasn't anxiety because there was. There is, of course, a very real feeling that you are heading down a path that is unfamiliar and there is nothing but your family and friends to act as guideposts on this new journey. I told the people closest to me about the process I had started and they were supportive but cautious. They knew me well enough that I don't generally do stupid things and, when I do, it's pointless to try and stop me. I had no feeling whatsoever that this path, however, was not worth traveling. I had no sense that what I was doing was not possible. I already knew I was willing to do this. The real question to answer now was, would I be mentally and physically strong enough to endure the process and that is exactly what these two days of tests were going to answer for me.
A few days later I got my box in the mail. It included glossy brochures with confident people making informed choices guided by people wearing scrubs. I also got two free parking passes for the garage which momentarily felt like scant compensation for giving away a vital organ. Also included was a liter jug marked with "BIOHAZARD" tape. I had a feeling I knew what that was for but, as I read through the material in the folder, it was confirmed. Not only was I asked to collect my own urine for 24 hours, I was asked to keep the specimen jug in the refrigerator until I got to the lab. Something told me that walking out of my comfort zone this far was going to be interesting, and a little unpredictable. I shrugged, put the jug back in the box and got back to my regular life, remembering my friend who was attached to a machine five hours a day five days a week. Perspective is a wonderful thing if you can find it. How I could feel anything but lucky seemed impossible to imagine. Whatever I might face during those two days of tests I thought about all of the people in my life I had lost the last three years and the gift I would have given any of them if I could, the gift of more time. I understood now more than ever that I have been given that gift myself and it was up to me to use it in the best way I knew how. We all do that in our own way, or we should. This just happened to be the opportunity that was presented to me. I was ready.
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