Mama Bear Told and Burning Questions Answered

As I have mentioned previously, I had not told my mother about any of my plans for Living Kidney Donation, even months ago, when I was testing to donate to Arnold.  There are various reasons why, and one of the main ones is that my mother can be very negative and is the type that just shuts anyone down that tries to disagree with her, even if it is a respectful disagreement. 

To be clear, I live in the same city as my mother, we spend lots of time together, and all of us have made a very conscious decision to stay in close proximity and have a close relationship. (For instance, I would love to get outta Denver, baby, move to Warmer Climes, but I would not, unless it was okay with my parents, as in, they came with us.  This is the way that I was raised. We need our parents and grandparents and vice versa.)

  Over the years, we have had very few "blow ups".  However, I was concerned because she worries about my health, and knows too much, as an RN, to be 100% on board with my living kidney donation.

Well, alert the media, I was totally wrong (and I am totally admitting it.)  I called her this morning and told her, apologizing that I had not told her sooner, to be sure, but she was quite interested, very positive and completely understanding.  Whew.  She said "I would never try to talk someone out of donating a kidney".

Even as old as I am, I certainly act like an immature idiot sometimes.  My mom even recalled my interest in kidney donation as a child.  She said, "I remember that when you were a kid, you picked up right up on it that a person only needs one kidney and wanted to know why someone had to wait for someone else to die to get a kidney."  I felt so validated!

I cannot help but think all of you praying did not have something to do with telling my mother and how well it went today.  I think it is a small miracle.

This brings us to Burning Question Numero Uno, which has been asked by a few of you on email and Facebook and even in person.

Q. Do you think talking about God so much in your blog will turn people off?

A. Yes, no, maybe, but I cannot help it if it does.  If people are uncomfortable with my belief in God and prayer and so on, that is okay.  I certainly do not want to offend anyone.  I am trying not to shove anything down anyone's throat.   My job is not to convert anyone to another way of belief. But my relationship with God is unique to me, and is part of this process.  It comes up in the telling of this story. This is how I function.  I am not speaking for anyone else, but if I have ever lead a person to think about Christ or their relationship with God, it is because it just came up in conversation. I have never preached a sermon. I want people to know some of the big things that lead me to a kidney donor, such as knowing people on dialysis and my RN mom and other moms and friends and my work place and lots of other small and large things that came into my universe.  This is how God speaks to me.  I have not always listened.  I have been known to turn my back and even plug my ears.  You can do that too if you want to.

Burning Question Numero Dos is not going to be of interest to anyone that works outside of Unnamed Police Department, yet, almost everyone that has read this blog from Unnamed Police Department and other Police Departments has asked me this in subtle and not so subtle ways.

Q. Do you think that you were not chosen to donate to Arnold because the Unnamed Police Department wanted the donor to be another cop and not a civilian so that the Police Department could get all the "good" press?

A. Though I love a Good Conspiracy Theory as much the next person, this is not the case.  For those of you who work outside of law enforcement, who are still reading, a cop is an officer of the law, and is sworn, in the most simple terms, to serve and protect.  A civilian participates in the activities of law enforcement that do not involve risking one's life.  Civilians are an important part of policing because they do functions that little kids that grew up wanting to be a cop never wanted to do, like crime analysis.  They also cost less to the city because they are not compensated as much, since they do not risk their life. 

 I do not believe that anyone that works outside of law enforcement that heard about a living kidney donation between two employees of a police department would care that one of the people was a sworn officer and the other person was a civilian. The police department, Arnold, and the Whole Transplant Team were not motivated to find a donor for Arnold that would make more interesting news because they are both cops!  As it turned out, the donor is a police officer, and hopefully the good press will help people who are looking for a kidney donor.  I do not believe that the news story would necessarily make anyone change their opinions of the Unnamed Police Department to know that two people there participated in a kidney donation. 

The importance of the news story is to create awareness and understanding of living kidney donation. 

I am hopeful that as a society we are moving to a higher level of understanding about living organ donation which includes realizing it is do-able and not wildly unusual. The more people hear about it, the more likely they are to be supportive of people going through the process, on either side, and to even consider donation themselves.

One of the difficult things about this process is that people have a lot of (uneducated) opinions about living organ donation. When I hear one of those opinions, I try to be grateful that I have this opportunity to make a difference by explaining the process to another person.  Sometimes though I just want to roll my eyes (or worse).  The negative comments are hard, but sometimes the positive ones are too.  Viva awareness and education!!!