It never hurts to help

Just when I thought it would be easy to forgo a social Internet presence, I decided to blog again. I tried in the past, but Facebook got in the way.

To bring anyone who is interested up to date, after a mountain bike ride in the fall of last year, I had sort of an epiphany while sitting and overlooking Nancytown Lake. "Wow, I'm so fortunate and able to enjoy all sorts of experiences in this world. It would be great to give in a way that would help someone else enjoy life to the fullest."
Then it hit me! There was a radio ad about living organ donation and from that moment on it was pretty much set.

Much research was done on my end to educate myself on the subject and I decided that a kidney would be the most suitable way for me to go. Looking around for organizations who specialized in this field began and I settled on Emory here in Georgia.

Fast forward through more research and some prelim work on this end and my time at Emory was here. I would spend about two days undergoing tests and speaking with a wonderful team of people who would be part of the process. There's more to this than a lot of folks realize and I was truly impressed with how much they value the health of the recipient as well as the donor. What really got me was that they assigned a social worker to me, a donor advocate of sorts. This was reassuring to say the least.

The scare.
They say that during this stage of the process, donors sometimes discover that they have underlying medical issues as well. And yep, they noticed that something might be up with me. Tests found that I have an extremely low white blood cell count. Not having WebMD handy, I had to ask what causes low wbc. So after picking my jaw up off the floor what some of the causes could  be I was told that they would wait a week and I could have another test because it could fluctuate. Thankfully I have several friends in the medical field and the internet and after some digging, I realized that my diet and ethnicity plays a role in my wbc. So after the next test I was relieved to hear that I was not HIV+ and I am just one of those who just don't have a normal wbc. But what is normal about me?

On to the next phase! The search for Spock, I mean a Match.

Please forgive me for leaving out chunks of stuff, and I could kick myself for not starting this months ago, but I sort of felt that it may have not gotten this far. But oh wow, it did.

I received a call from my nurse coordinator yesterday with the news. It was surreal. They have a match! When asked when I wanted to do this I was like now! So I tried for the 19th of this month, but I have since then learned that that date isn't possible. So the next date on the list is the 26th. This within itself is a blessing. A little more time to wrap things up here at the hall of justice (City Hall) and some more quality time with family/godfamily/friends/fishing/hiking/biking is always welcomed.

Yep, that's where we stand. Stay tuned for a Q&A.