It was a week ago today, I was in the kitchen cooking breakfast for my kids. "Pigs in a Blanket" - I'd put Banquet Sausages in some crescent roll dough and bake 'em up. The boy loves to dip them in syrup. It's a treat for a breakfast, we were having a nice morning together after a day the park together the day before; so when the phone rang and I saw it was the transplant clinic, I thought it was just them calling to schedule a couple of exams I needed for my yearly checkup - an EKG and Chest X-Ray. I'd been in recently for an ultrasound, but still needed those few tests to round out my yearly maintenance on the transplant list. But my coordinator on the phone asked me what I was doing.
"Oh, you know, making breakfast for the kids, getting ready for dialysis. Why, what's up?"
"A kidney has become available, and we need you to come up and give a current blood draw for it. We need to see if you're still a match, because you're number one in line for this."
It was like the world stopped for a moment. I could hear the blood rush in my ear, the sound of my kids playing at the kitchen table suddenly became an octave and decibel lower.
"Uh, okay, I'll get someone to watch the kids and I'll be right up."
"See you soon, Steven."
I hung up my phone, and tried to calm myself. This had happened before. Was probably routine. Stunned, I called my parents to see if they could watch the kids, and I went up. I knew I was highly sensitized after two previous transplants and blood transfusions this summer, so I didn't hold out much hope. I quickly drove up to the hospital, parked, and walked inside the both newly renovated and newly placed COVID-19 protocols. I'd been walking in the doors of this hospital almost 18 years. My first transplant there was in November of 2003. I checked in, went up to the lab and they drew my blood. I went home, changed, hugged the kids goodbye, as they were going to their Mom's that afternoon, and I went to dialysis.
I sat for hours in the chair, trying not to think too much about it. It was hard, but dialysis is always hard. At the end of treatment, I still hadn't heard, and they took the needles out and wrapped up my arm when my phone rang. It was the clinic. Everyone there knew I had been called that morning - I could see the staff begin to edge in toward me. My coordinator asked what I was doing. I told her "finishing up dialysis" and she said "Well, we'd like you to come up, because the kidney is a match and we're offering it to you. Can you be here in an hour?"
"Yeah," I said aloud, "I can be there."
The staff smiled and began to bubble. I hung up the phone.
"It's a match. I'm getting a kidney tonight," I said.
The staff erupted into cheers, and suddenly I was surrounded by a massive hug from everyone I'd come to know at my dialysis center. I walked outside in a daze, got in my car, made a Facebook live video, and went home. My parents dropped me off at the hospital a little bit later. 12 hours later... I was having a kidney transplant.
It's still unreal to me, and I really cannot stress how thankful I am - the support I've had over the years and again especially this last week... I don't know if I'll ever be able to adequately describe how I feel. But I'm so grateful for this new lease on life and I can't wait to keep going and keep getting better. Thank you so much. It's been one week since I woke up with a working kidney. I'm healing well. Things are working. And I feel so much better all the time. It's amazing, the difference between life on dialysis and life with a transplant.
2020 was very, very hard for me. I lost so much. But I finally feel like I have a fighting chance to gain something back. I am looking forward to my new life.
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