4/1/11
Day 7 of 10 to 14 day wait for the results of our crossmatch test and I am going crazy. How do people wait? I usually take pride in my patience, but I guess that does not apply to this situation. I can’t imagine if the tables were turned and I was the one receiving the kidney! How does Cherina do it?
Last Sunday I did my first 24-hour urine test and my 3 year old walked into the bathroom while I was filling the toilet hat. I guess most people would have locked the door, but at least I shut it! She asked me a zillion questions about what I was doing and why and she wasn’t satisfied with half answers. I explained everything to her – Miss Cherina is sick, and mommy is seeing if she can help ... She has bad kidneys and I have 2 good ones and I can hopefully share one with her. We will have an operation and the doctor will give her one of mine. I will be tired for a little while and have to stay in a hospital for a few days, but she can come visit. She wanted to know everything! Where are your kidneys? Why do you have 2 if you only need one? Why did God give Miss Cherina bad kidneys? How does the Doctor take one out of me and give one to her? Will I be gone for a little while? When will she get to see me again? Will it make Miss Cherina all better? She asked question after question for at least five minutes until she was satisfied. She was very focused on my answers and repeated things back to make sure she understood. Finally, she said “mommy, it is good to help people that need our help.”
That night we went up to (I say up to because they live next door) my in-laws for our weekly family dinner and Ainslee told her aunt that miss Cherina was very sick and God gave mommy 2 kidneys so she can share one with her. My sister-in-law came over to me in tears repeating what my special little three year old had said. If nothing else, this whole experience has allowed me to teach my daughter about the importance of sharing.
4/8/11
I guess this entry should start with Wednesday’s email to Kami. I couldn’t take it any longer and made up a reason to email. Since I botched the second 24 hour urine test on Sunday by accidentally going pee in the toilet – come on Kara! – I needed to figure out how to clean out my container. Soap? No soap? Wash it in the dishwasher? Bleach? Does it need to be sterile? I emailed Kami to ask how to clean my container and she said:
HI,yes, I did get the first one. Your HLA is still in process but the initial results look good. I called the lab yesterday to see if you did your second urine.If you can just rinse with hot water and air dry that would be fine.Once labs are complete and you do the second urine, I will forward your chart for review to Dr. Kendrick.Thanks for letting me know.Kami
Did you see the second sentence in the first line? Blah Blah Blah initial results look good! Woo Hoo! Look good, I like look good. To me, any sort of optimism from a medical professional is a really good sign. I don’t think they spread optimism easily.
So, since the tests are looking good, I started the second 24-hour urine output test on a Thursday and did it while at work. I carried around a red soft-sided cooler with a 3 liter jug, an ice pack and a toilet hat in a plastic sac. Everyone noticed. I am split between two schools, and the first school’s staff bathroom is a single toilet room, so I left the cooler in the bathroom and people thought it was all sorts of things. About 20 bathroom jokes later, I headed over to the other school where it is a staff/student bathroom so I could not leave it there. I carried the cooler off to the potty in the afternoon and ran into one staff member who started laughing at me bringing in the cooler. We talked for a few minutes, then realized another staff member was in the bathroom too and she joined our conversation. Walking out of the bathroom a male teacher asked what I was having for lunch and one of the office secretaries said it was my spare kidney. She had no idea. I told her it was my pee to see if I could donate a kidney, and she was shocked. So after explaining the whole story to her, about ¾ of the people I work with know about my plan to donate.
As I was leaving school I decided to go and talk to one of the teachers at the end of the hall who hadn’t seen my cooler in action and tell him about my journey so far. I walked into his room, sat on a table across from his desk and asked if I could share my good news. I started my story, from the initial email until now and by the time I was finished he had tears in his eyes and said that his good friend is scheduled to have a kidney transplant on April 29. He said they have not heard from a donor’s point of view, and no one has expressed any positivity around his kidney disease and upcoming transplant. No one has heard his brother say that he is excited to be able to give the gift of life – that he is donating out of anything other than a sense of obligation to his brother. None of their friends had offered to donate, and no one had any sense of hope. My story allowed him to see kidney donation in a different manner. To see it as a gift of life. He was moved beyond words and it was, again, a sign of conformation to me. I am doing this for a reason; right now it is looking like many reasons. My purpose in donating to Cherina is bigger than my own selfish reasons of wanting to say that one time I did something great. God’s plan for me in this is bigger than I know, and reaching farther than just my little family and hers. We shall see where it takes us
~Kara
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