Continued story of my decision to donate my kidney
Part 2
Weighing The Choices
The choices I discussed last time get going over and over in my head and in my discussions with Wife – what would be the consequences to us to her if the worse happened. At the same time there was this other theme – I could save her life. Or I could let her go on dialysis and wait and wait and wait until maybe she came up on the donation list. And I balanced this against the importance of my life to my family and what my sister’s contribution was.
That was a particularly bad space to be in. How do you judge another persons life. Do you do it on accomplishment? Values? Wealth? What? Ultimately for me the entire conundrum came down to a rather simple thought. If the roles were reversed, would I want someone examining my life and passing judgment on me as to my worthiness to be saved? Hell no I wouldn’t. I’d want them to save my ass.
That sealed the decision in my own mind. But that did not take into account the fillings and desires of Wife. I don’t want to put words in her mouth. I think anyone who is married or has had a long relationship with a partner would be less than happy to have that partner making such a choice. After long talks with Wife I got her acquiescence to proceed.
3 comments:
Yeah, none of us would want a peer or sibling sitting in judgment of us with our life on the line. And personally, I don't think I would want to be the judger either. Tough situation when the recipient has been less than a model citizen.
I'm in the process of donating a kidney to my sister as we speak. She is a fablous woman - wife, sister, mother of 2 incredible girls - but every time she sees me, she starts to cry because she is so overwhelmed that I (or anyone) would give up a kidney to 'save [her] ass' *chuckle* I didn't get that for awhile, but one late sleepless night I put myself in her shoes; the feeling of helplessness knowing that your life - literally - relies on another human being either dying or undergoing major surgery on your behalf.
Immense doesn't begin to cover it.
As you can see from my writings I was all over the map with my emotions. My sister kept a lot of her emotions to herself during our experience. As we got closer to the event and I became more sure of my motivations, I made extremely clear to her that I was doing this for myself...for my own motivations and that there were no strings attached or payback required or anything.
I know that she and her husband still feel the same overwhelming gratitude and uncertainty of how to deal with it.
On my part it is somewhat easier since we are physically over a thousand miles apart.
I will tell you this; we were not particularly close before this but have a helluva a lot closer and better relationship now.
Hang in there. When is the surgery scheduled for?
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