It was a typical
Sunday afternoon, when the phone rang.
It was my parents. There was
nothing unusual about that. Since they lived in North Carolina, it was our habit to talk on
Sunday afternoon and catch up. This time
however, it was just my mom, and I could tell she had something pressing to
tell me. “I want to be tested to see if
I am a match for Ed’s kidney.”
The fact my mom
wanted to do this really didn’t surprise me. She is the most selfless person I
know. She’s the kind of person that
would give away anything she has to some one, family or not, and she does so
with a humble, quiet spirit. She loves
to serve and has a true servant’s heart and I love that about her. But to be honest, I didn’t want her to do
it. The thought of having my husband and
my mom on the operating table at the same time was just more than I could
handle. I would rather it be me. I could
tell though, by the tone of her voice she had made up her mind and there was no
changing it, so I agreed. I knew there
such a slim chance of her being a close enough match anyway that this door
would probably close, but I loved her for wanting to make such a sacrifice.
A few weeks later, I
received the results of my antigen test. I matched 3 out of 6 antigens!
Remember, there was only a 50 percent chance of this happening if I was his
blood relative and a 1 in 100,000 chance of this happening as a non blood
relative. He now affectionately refers
to me as “Sis”! (I know that’s kinda creepy, right?) But here’s where it gets good. The following week my moms test came back as
well. She also matched 3 out of 6
antigens!!
Only God!
To say that our nephrologist
was left speechless was an understatement.
He had never seen this before. It
was decided on the doctors recommendation, that my mom should be the first to
donate. She would be out of the age range for donation if another transplant
was needed in the future A transplanted kidney can last on average 10 years,
sometimes longer, sometimes less. That
way mine would be available in the future if needed.
I had still had a
lot of anxiety about having my mom and my husband on that operating table but
little by little God was whittling down my fears and replacing them with faith.
A faith was bigger than I had ever walked out before. A faith that required me to relinquish my grip
and let go of all the “what ifs”… and just trust…no matter what.
The next few months would hold a lot more unknowns but it
was clear that God wasn’t finished yet.
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