Kidney Donation - Our Journey Part One

A Different Perspective
I have never written very much about our adventure last year when my husband donated a kidney, we've passed the year anniversary and I haven't even mentioned it. Saturday is the annual Donate Life walk in our area, so I thought now would be a good time to write about our journey of organ donation. My husband has his own version, but I've never had the chance to write it from my perspective.

A Connection
It started some time in 2005 when a prayer request went out about a teenager in our church who needed a kidney. Actually, it started some time before that, when my husband (Tony) was an elder at our church. One night he was asked to pray for a family whose father had just found out he had MS. That family was the Pratt family and I could see that my husband was touched by their circumstances. It was a little odd that they stood out so much because he'd been asked to pray for families in difficult times before, but I know now that God had a deeper purpose for that encounter. The next time I remember seeing the Pratt family was at Baja Fresh one Sunday and those are the only two encounters I can remember having with this family.

A Prayer Request
That puts us at the time when the prayer request went out. The request was for a young high school girl that needed a kidney transplant. There had been many people who had gone in to be tested and none were a match. I remember my husband telling me "Just so you know, I might need to go get tested for that kidney donation." I think it's funny he felt the need to warn me about that, but I guess we did have 3 kids and one on the way at the time. My feelings about that? I was for it, I don't think I took it very seriously at that point, after all it was just a warning and what are the chances he'd be a match anyway? SO-many-people had already tested negative.

A Guest Speaker
The next thing Tony did was ask Raegan to share her story with the youth group. I remember the night she came, I had no idea who she was and her mom brought her in before the service. Tracey is the sweetest and funniest lady you'll ever meet and she came in all bubbly talking to me a mile a minute and then walked out. I turned to the teenager she left standing there and then figured it out. "Oh, you must be Raegan!" It was good to put a face to the name I'd been praying for, who knew that face would become so dear to me. The night that she shared was the same night that Tony got the paperwork to get his blood tested to see if he was a match.

A Decision
I remember we went home that night and talked about it and came to the conclusion that if we were a match we'd have to go through with it or not test at all. We also came to the conclusion that it would be utter selfishness to look that sweet girl in the face and say we won't donate an organ to you because it would be an inconvenience to us. How could we not at least try to help her if it was in our power to do so. I looked my husband in the eye that night and told him, this is someone's life you're messing with here, if you're say you're going to do this, do it! Fill out that paper work and don't just leave it sitting on your desk forever. The next night, I filled it all out for him and had him sign it. I figured it was the least I could do. He'll joke to this day that I was the one who wanted to do this and that I'm not allowed to give away any more of his organs! :) I know that's not true, he's a sweetheart and loves to help people in any way he can.

A Match
I don't remember much about this part, but at some point we found out he was a match and that he needed to go in to talk to a doctor and to have more tests. It was at this point that the real journey began. I remember at this point thinking wow, this might really happen and wondering what exactly it all meant. We had read a lot about organ donation, what was involved and the risks of it. We had questions about when the transplant would take place because we were expecting a baby. The risks really were minimal for a healthy person and the testing was to find out if he was a healthy person. I remember thinking during this time that my husband could possibly die from this and leave me with 4 kids. I always came back to the selfishness thing though, how could I tell Raegan that I wouldn't try to help her? I knew that God was in control and that His perfect will would be carried out in our situation. In all honesty though, this really wasn't something we had to think too much about, I think we both felt that this was something we were supposed to do and so we were going to do it. It was a small thing in our lives and not something we trivialized over. I find that fact odd because we discuss and rediscuss every little decision, but somehow this was different. That was totally God.

Testing, Testing and More Testing!
Did I mention there were a lot of tests? Go figure, you want to take an organ from your body and put in someone else's body and they want to poke and prod at you for months beforehand! :) There were blood tests, heart tests, urine tests, IQ tests, you name it, they tested it. The end result? Tony was in perfect health. You can imagine how proud that made him and how he scoffed at me the next time I told him to stop drinking soda before bed. We met with a wonderful nurse named Marya and she answered all our questions and had some of her own, she explained the testing process to us and kept us up to date on what was going on in the process. This process took months. The baby was born in June and we still were not sure exactly if and when the surgery was a go.

That's enough for today, I'll try to update tomorrow so that I can finish before the walk. In the mean time here are some pictures of Raegan and Tony.

Part Two

-Julee