About 15 years ago, I was blessed to have a wonderful woman come into my life. She married my uncle, and through him we became family. But more than just family, we became friends. During holidays we would sneak off to the back bedroom to have very serious "girl-talk" and she was always there to listen and give me counsel when I had a problem that I wasn't quite sure how to handle.
While the marriage between her and my uncle did not last, our friendship has remained strong - probably even stronger now that I am no longer a child and we are able to bond as women. Even though we no longer are put together through family holidays, we have still made time over the past years to get together often, and stay in touch online and I still consider her my "Aunt Michelle"
I was always aware that Michelle had some health problems, though growing up I really didn't understand what was going on. Through our adult relationship, I have come to more fully understand her condition. Michelle was diagnosed with end stage renal disease in October 2008 and was advised she needed a kidney transplant. Her disease is called focal segmental glomerosclerosis, FSG for short. She has been on the transplant list for 3 years, and she has had 21 possible donor candidates denied for one reason or another. This past week she found out her kidney function was at 6% and had reached the end of her possible donor list.
I have always felt such a special and important connection to Michelle, from a very young age. We are kindred spirits. I always assumed in our many conversations that I would never be considered as a potential donor because of my crohn's diagnosis a few years ago and the medical struggles that entails. However, after the update this past week, I wrote her just to make sure that was the case. Michelle called her donor coordinator who said that, in fact, that was not something that would disqualify me.
So, after some heavy thought and prayer, I asked my dad what my blood type was (Michelle is O-). It is crazy, but after a bajillion (it seems) blood tests I've had in my life, no one knows my blood type! But, he did tell me that I was either O+ or B+. (For those unaware, the + or - doesn't matter for kidney donation, so long as you are the same letter). I decided to get my blood typed, to see if it was even possible for me to apply to be a donor for Michelle. So, yesterday, I went and got my blood drawn.
This morning, when I woke up, there was an email from the lab saying my test results had been posted to my online account (gotta love technology). I got really nervous as I logged into my account and opened the test results, but as I read the results - that I am O+ - I got a peaceful feeling all over. Like this was somehow meant to be.
In my prayers before bed last night, I asked God to give me some direction through these test results, both for my sake, and for Michelle's - who has already had to go through 21 donor candidates being denied. So, I asked Him to make my be B+ if this was not part of his plan, so that we would know, and be able to move on if this was not what he wanted.
While there is no real way of knowing at this point what the future holds, I do feel like the fact that Michelle and I are a blood-match tells me everything I need to know. No matter where we go from here, no matter what the other tests will say, getting to this point, and applying to be her donor is all part of a greater plan.
So there it is - I am turning in my application to be a kidney donor for my Aunt Michelle. I would truly appreciate your thoughts and prayers as we start down this incredible journey - I know that there are a million reasons that this might get stopped, and that I might get denied - but I have been praying for her donor for over 2 years now... and I can't believe I might have actually been praying for myself all that time...
No comments:
Post a Comment