I Dontated a Kidney

Kohen, my 5-year-old nephew was sitting on a blanket eating a Popsicle next to my almost 4-year-old daughter, Ainslee.

Kohen asked, “Ainslee, do you know miss Cherina?”

“Yeah, my mom gave her a kidney,” Ainslee said, without even looking up.

“Oh, she’s my teacher,” Kohen informed her.

I was sitting in a nearby rocking chair talking to Cherina on the phone, 6 days after our transplant surgeries, and was able to overhear this conversation. It was so cute, so honest and so simply stated. I gave a kidney to my nephew’s preschool teacher, Cherina.

Cherina and I have decided to share our story – the story of two people, essentially strangers, who met under these crazy circumstances and now share an indescribable bond. I will start at the beginning and be posting chronologically leading up to our donation, which happened on June 1, 2011. Cherina did not start journaling in the beginning, but rather wrote her version of our story a month or so before the transplant occurred. Instead of trying to rework her story, we will post all of it at once.

Our goal for this blog is to be able to share this experience with our families and let them in on what we were feeling at the time, to document our journey for our children to someday read and fully understand the miracle that we were so lucky to be a part of and hopefully inspire and encourage others who are embarking on the path we just stepped off of.

~Kara