The Y

I am on the Board of Directors of our local YMCA - it is a volunteer position.

I was privileged to be invited to the General Assembly in Salt Lake City last weekend - a conference they only put on every 3-5 years. I went with a little trepidation, I don't like being away from home, husband or puppies. But knowing it was only 4 days I knew I could do it.

I had very little expectation on how it would turn out for me. What I didn't expect was all the wonderful people I met. There were about 3500 people there from Y's all across the US - I met people from Florida, Pennsylvania, New York, Wisconsin, Texas, Oklahoma, Colorado, New Mexico. Most of them were staff, the split was about 60/40 or 70/30 staff to volunteers. When I told them I was a volunteer from a branch Y in the Seattle area they were all so gracious and thanked me for volunteering. They were genuine and displayed a real warmth. And most of the staff I met had been working for the YMCA for years - from 8, 15, 18, 20 to 30 years. Wow! Now that is dedication.

And the speakers were wonderful, enlightening, uplifting, an inspiration.

One of whom, Nido Quebein I heard on the first day. From him I took away this:

How will you go from success to significance...?

Reactions

I try to tell as many people as possible about my decision to donate a kidney to a stranger. And it always surprises me the reactions I get.

Most of the time it is... "oh, how interesting".... then on to the next topic. I spoke to a woman yesterday whose husband had donated a kidney. Her comment was that what I am doing scares some people. Or they don't know exactly what to say so they ignore the whole thing. And a couple of friends have actually tried to talk me out of it, telling me I'm crazy, what if something happens to the other kidney. My response has been, what if something happens to my liver, or heart or brain, I've only got one of those too.

But I've gotten 2 reactions in the last week that gave told me these people "got it". As I told one man last week and he heard my story he looked at me and said "no one I know thinks like that" and "wow, that is so wonderful, you're going to save someone's life". He was practically gushing. That kind of reaction gives me a real sense that I'm doing the right thing.

For me, this is more of a spiritual thing, something I've been called to do. I can't explain it any other way than to say the universe, or God has put this in my path and it is something I have to do.

And I have no doubt that it will all turn out just fine.

kidneys, part 5

I had my CT scan on Monday, July 12th. It was pretty interesting, laying on a table, a donut-like machine making several passes over my middle. I also had to have an IV so that they could inject a contrast dye into my system. You really feel that as it goes in, a hot sensation from my neck down to my groin area - quite bizarre.

I met the surgeon shortly after that - a nice, Indian, Dr. Bhakta. One thing he mentioned that they have a difficult time with living donors, because their oath is "first, do no harm". So for a surgeon to operate on a perfectly healthy person, take out my kidney, which does not benefit me in the least - is totally against their principle of do no harm. An interesting conundrum.

The transplant nurse, Kami, went over all my test results, which were all good. I've been exposed to mono (which I had no idea), my cholesterol is somewhat elevated (208, not good) and I've been exposed to Herpes 2 (cold sores, which I knew). Other than that I am boringly healthy.

I will be approved for kidney donation next week when the doctor in charge returns from vacation and their group meets.

After that, we will set a date, probably the beginning of September. Then they will look for a recipient.

I posed the question to Kami - what if they have two acceptable recipients, both match me well and one is a 65 year old, retired person and other is a 20 year old just starting out in life with many years to go..... How do they resolve that ethical dilemma?

But the UWMC follows the United Network for Organ Sharing guidelines which means they take the person at the top of the list who most closely matches me, no matter the age.