Five Years and Going Strong

Five years ago, on May 22, 2003, my dad donated a kidney to me. When I was 16 I was diagnosed with glumerulonephritis, a kidney disease and it took five years for me to reach complete kidney failure. It came time to either have a transplant or get on dialysis. My siblings were all willing to donate a kidney to me and they were tested for a match...but none of them ended up being a match. Sibling make the best donors because they have the same gene pool as you. Parents usually don't make as good of a match-but still make good donors. So my parents were tested. Miraculously, my dad somehow was a PERFECT match...the doctors thought we were weird! Somehow I had six out of six factors-that made a perfect match. That just doesn't happen with parent and child! So I feel pretty lucky...but I guess it was more than luck!

Here are me and my dad on the day before the transplant in our kidney t-shirts. We went into surgery early in the morning on May 22. I was pretty nervous. I was afraid for my dad to have to get cut open and have an organ ripped out when he wasn't even sick. But I am sure that for him it was a no-brainer. Now that I have kids I know that a parent would do anything for their child.
This is us after the surgery, on the same day. Can you believe that my dad got out of bed and came down the hall to see me! I remember wanting to get up and go see him, but I couldn't move! All of my stomach muscles had been cut in half, and I was on morphine. I don't know how he did it!

And can you believe that the next day they made us get up every few hours to go walk the halls! But we would plan our walk together. More often than not, Dad came to my room to "pick me up" for our walk.

And of course there were visitors! Josh came several times and sat with me. It was very comforting. And that's also when I knew I was going to marry him!

Here we are on another walk.

My dad would want to tell the story about how I always wanted to be 120 pounds. I always thought that if I could be 120 pounds I would finally be beautiful! LOL. Anyway, they would weigh us everyday, several times a day, and of course I was loosing weight in the hospital. One night the nurse came in to weigh me and I stepped on the scale very carefully, trying not to hurt my incision. I held on to the rails all hunched over and let the scale read my weight. I looked down at the scale and it said 120 lbs! Yay! I wanted to throw my hand in the air and say "I am finally sexy!" My dad thought it was a funny story because there I was, crippled in pain, looking like I had just had some major surgery or something, and this is what it took for me to finally be sexy!

I felt bad for my dad. I didn't want him to be in pain because of me. But I'll bet he'll tell you it was worth it.

Dad was sent home several days before me, because they had to keep me to make sure my body accepted the kidney. It was sad to have him leave. This is him saying good bye to me. No offence Dad, but I was a youngin' and he was an older fellow, and so my recovery was a lot faster than his. The day I got home he was still in a lot of pain, and I leaped out of the car and jumped up and down happy to be home. I still had to be careful, but I wasn't hurting like he was.

I got out of the hospital and then ended up right back in. I got really sick with something-I can't remember now. This is a picture of my brother Ben carrying me.

I finally got to go home on June 1st. It was a good day.

My dad saved my life by giving me a chance to live. I am grateful for him and his sacrifice. It was a completely selfless thing to do, and reminds me of the sacrifice Christ made. He offered of himself to save me. Thank you Daddy! I love you! Thank you for giving me the chance to live longer, to be able to get married, and to have my beautiful children. I hope I live the life that you gave me to make you proud.