Organ Donation Chronicle - D plus 8

Conclusion

It has been over a week since the operation. I am clearly on the mend with the swelling around the incision decreasing and a continuous but diminishing level of pain. You definitely know you’ve been through something. Physically it’s like they took your high performance V-6 out and replaced it with a 2-cylinder self-propelled lawnmower engine. My brain seems to have traded in it’s top of the line MAC for a 1980’s PC.

Emotionally and psychologically, it’s another story. How does one process and understand the consequences of doing something like this? The first few days after I was out of the hospital, I couldn’t even talk about the event without breaking into tears. Why?

I had made such a huge investment into doing this. I did not want to fail –did not want to fail. It has to have been the greatest personal test I have ever faced. I did not want to face myself and say that when the chips were down and someone else’s life was at risk, that I was to afraid to pull the trigger because of my own fear of dying.

What if it had been some outside influence that had prevented it like the scare with the heart stress test? That brought on another set of fears. When you publicly announce you are going to do this and you receive as much public support back, how do you go and tell everyone that you were rejected? That may seem like a petty emotion, but it was right up their on my fear list.

And there was the fear of what if something went wrong. What if the worse happened and I died or came out a vegetable?

During those first few days out of the hospital, there was this realization that none of these fears had actualized. I had done it. I had followed through, put my life on the line, given my sister a chance to live again. I had taken the risk in order to balance my karmic accounts for all the good that I had received. Nothing had jumped up to disqualify me. I would not be a person who talked a good game but never actually did it. I was healthy, recovering; my wife and her future lifestyle were safe. I don’t know if it was relief, joy, incredulity, or what but I was overwhelmed.

Then there is the influence that all of this has had on my family that I eluded to earlier. Just after I got out of the hospital my oldest brother arrived to assist in the transition. My Dad and two brothers were together to discuss how we would help my sister in the complicated process of establishing her new regimen. This is the first time all of us had been together since my Mother’s death four years ago. In the interim there had been fallouts between one of my brothers and I and one of them and my Dad. And none of us had been close to my sister. I can honestly say that I had thought all of us getting together was never going to happen again…but here it was…a reality.

I also have an unbelievable wellspring of gratitude fill my heart. Gratitude to my Wife who put her own wellbeing at risk because she knew that this was something that I felt so strongly about. Gratitude to God for having given me the opportunity to show what I was really made of. Gratitude to all the medical staff who in the clutch took care of my Sister and I. Gratitude to my family who all rose to the occasion to help even though I never asked or even thought about the consequences of my actions to them. Gratitude for all those who gave us support in whatever form from thoughts and prayers to the hotel people in Manchester. Gratitude that whatever the magnitude of this decision it was a small small sacrifice compared to that made by many, many millions and millions of others around the world all the time.

So what does one make of having gone through such an experience? I can’t say yet. It’s going to have to rattle around in my being for a while longer. I know I’ve changed. I’m not sure just how, but I’ve changed.