so much happened yesterday

i have to admit i am feeling very overwhelmed. not with the kidney donation at all, but rather with the amount of attention this kidney donation is receiving. to be completely honest, i do not feel like what i am doing is a godly deed. it is something very nice and giving, yes, but i am not untouchable.

i am mostly scared that the real meaning as to why i am doing this is getting lost in all the attention this donation is receiving. i am doing this donation as a tribute to my halmoney who lost her battle with pancreatic cancer at 8am on may 18, 2008. my intentions of keeping this blog were to track my own feelings for my own personal remembrance and to raise awareness of kidney donation and PKD, as well as other kidney relation diseases and disorders. i will go on to say that as long as that message is not lost throughout this process, i will be more than happy to share my story and insight on kidney donation.

with that said and out of the way, yesterday went incredibly well!! my recipient and i had our final cross match done (a blood test where they mix our blood together to make sure there are no reactions to give reason as to why he would reject my kidney). i finally had the chance to meet my recipient face-to-face for a few moments before being called in to talk with a social worker one last time (where i was asked, yet again, if i was sure i wanted to do this). afterwords, i went back into the waiting room and chatted some more with my recipient. he showed me photos of his friends and family-- it was nice to have some insight into his life. it makes it much more real when i get to see things like that :)

lastly, i went over to the hospital where the surgery will take place and met my (cute) surgeon, filled out some preliminary pre-admission paperwork, had another EKG and finally a chest x-ray. i was back on long island at 3:30 and left almost immediately to go babysit for my favorite 1 year old twins and their big 6 year old brother, brant (who had his 1st horseback riding lesson yesterday-- so cute!!!). after i was able to get the babies and brant to sleep, i received a phone call from my roommate who said my recipient left some pretty urgent messages on our home phone. i called him back where he informed me that NBC Nightly News was interested in doing a 1 hour special on our story and he wanted to know if it was okay to pass along my phone number. being that part of my agenda in this donation is to spread word about donation in general, i agreed that it would be a good thing to do this show. he proceeded on in saying that the director of the documentary (leonardo), was also interested in interviewing me, preferably before the surgery and asked if monday was good for me. unfortunately due to the fact that i am taking so much time off for the surgery (including all my vacation, sick and personal days-- i'm even taking off a few days where i won't get paid leave) i would be unable to take off monday as well. he provided me with the number of the director and i called him right away. the director and i settled on sunday as a date for my interview and decided to film in either central park or long island city. i am awaiting his confirmed phone call, but it should be coming at some point today.

so, although yesterday was somewhat of a whirlwind... i am so excited that the donation is coming so quickly :) the small fears and nervousness that has come my way was quickly washed away. i know i am doing the right thing. i have a few more things to wrap up at work today and then prepare for the surgery, but i am all set to go!! i just really cannot wait to see my parents :)