Waiting on our transplant units to get the ball rolling for compatibility tests… I guess the one thing I have been forced to learn is patience… Onwards and upwards!
Waiting
30 Wednesday Mar 2016
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in30 Wednesday Mar 2016
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inWaiting on our transplant units to get the ball rolling for compatibility tests… I guess the one thing I have been forced to learn is patience… Onwards and upwards!
29 Tuesday Mar 2016
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in29 Tuesday Mar 2016
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inMmmm, I have delayed writing this blog for a few days… why? It’s very difficult to face your own emotions sometimes. Jill (an old school friend) has come forward as a potential living kidney donor for me, an end stage renal patient. I am holding on to life by means of dialysis and medication at present… plus the love and support of family and friends.
Unbelievably, she is the eighth person to offer. The first seven matched my blood type, but when it got to tissue typing, we were incompatible. The emotional rollercoaster of hope and disappointment after each failed attempt has got me and my kids to the place where, although we are hopeful, we are now guarded in case of yet another disappointment.
Jill is highly motivated to save my or someone else’s life. I get where she is and her motivations, so should we not match, the disappointment would not only be for us, but for her as well, although she can and would donate to someone else. The common strain I have seen in all the potential donors and the people I know who have already donated a kidney is a quiet self confidence and a burning desire to make a difference… can there be any greater selfless calling than to literally save a person’s life? The kindness constantly reduces me to tears.
The stress to date has not been the continual awful hospital stays, hours of dialysis, the nausea, fatigue and pain, and seeing people die around you, but the toll it takes on my children as each new attempt fails due to lack of compatibility. Right now, we are waiting for our respective transplant units, Jill’s in Canada and mine in Johannesburg to organize the initial compatibility tests. At present there is still hope, we are buoyant, but there is also the gut-wrenching fear of receiving the news that Jill (probably my best shot to date) and I don’t match. Will keep you posted. Di and kids.xxx
27 Sunday Mar 2016
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inWe all see and hear the inequalities, hardships, unfairness and suffering of the human condition: the homeless, the fleeing, the starving, the drowning. It’s impossible to escape, and it’s overwhelming. But there is a whole other world of suffering and fear out there, one that is quiet and patient but just as desperate. It is almost invisible, but shouldn’t be. Hopefully these words will serve to make visible and bring attention and action to those who find themselves in this hard space.
As happens in the busy, noisy, needy world we all inhabit, there are moments when instinct overrides reason, and compassion rules over judgement, and we place the coins in the hat or buy the trinket we don’t need. Recently, in one of those moments, I responded to a call for help. Not on a whim, but from a guttural sense of needing to make a difference and be of service.
A friend is suffering. She needs a kidney. I have one to give. It might be a match.
It was a simple decision and easy call to answer.
The fact that we live on different continents is immaterial. Isn’t this why the Internet exists? To enable communication and exchanges of information? Across hemispheres and time zones, via flurries of emails and text messages, we are together navigating the bureaucracy that will lead to the hard part of this uncertain journey, the needles and scalpels and scars. Or maybe not. Watch this space!
Whatever the outcome, already I have encountered brave dignity in a desperate situation, selfless generosity, faith, gratitude and kindness. I have caught a glimpse of a world where people support each other graciously. I find myself on a path that I know will change my life for the better, no matter the outcome.
I am discovering that compassion is a human condition too.