I felt good about the talk with the nephrologist. I felt I had a better sense of what is involved, and how it happens. He explained different things I wanted to know, like how they figure out whether a kidney will match up.
I explained to him why I was being a kidney donor, and how this came out of my husband’s experience with kidney cancer. I explained that I wanted the same surgeon my husband had. I told him, “Hopefully nothing will go wrong, but if something does, it’s going to be easier for us to handle, for my husband to handle especially, if it is the same doctor that saved his life. I know all the surgeons are good, but we have a relationship with that surgeon.” “That’s very interesting,” he said, smiling, “I’ve never come across that reasoning before, but it makes perfect sense.”
He was a very congenial doctor; at the end, he shook my hand and said how gratifying it was to meet me. He said, “It’s so good to see how you took a negative experience of cancer, and are making something so positive come out of it, I wish there were a lot more people like you. It really is an exceptional thing that you are doing.”
The thing is, I don't think that it is that exceptional. I am not that courageous, really I am not. I just think that not enough people know that kidneys are needed. People would do this if they knew it was really needed, and if they were told the steps they had to take. Part of me writing this blog has to do with getting the word out; you might be able to save a life too. If I can do it, and I am such an unextraordinary person, maybe you can too.
The thing is, I don't think that it is that exceptional. I am not that courageous, really I am not. I just think that not enough people know that kidneys are needed. People would do this if they knew it was really needed, and if they were told the steps they had to take. Part of me writing this blog has to do with getting the word out; you might be able to save a life too. If I can do it, and I am such an unextraordinary person, maybe you can too.