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| Our Wedding Day - 1992 (hence, the puffy sleeves!) |
The goal was always
to transplant before dialysis was needed because once a patient starts dialysis
it can cause more complications after transplant. A lot of people do not have a choice but to
go on dialysis due to not receiving a donor in time. While Ed’s kidney function percentage
remained low, and the deciding number that leads to the need for dialysis remained
steady which was baffling to doctors.
But at the urging of our nephrologists, as Ed’s kidney function numbers
began to decline, we began to prepare for transplant.
There are several
factors involved in this, the first one being blood type. After being tested we discovered that Ed’s
blood type is AB positive. It is one of
the rarest blood types (only 3.4% have this type) and actually in this instance
worked in his favor. One factor of its
rarity is that it actual means he is a “universal recipient” – meaning he has
the unique ability to receive a kidney from any blood type. This was fantastic
news because it meant that he would actually be moved up on the transplant
waiting list from years to months (about three to be exact). In the words of the doctor “If you have to
be a transplant patient then you are the blood type everyone wants to be”. This
fact made transplant before dialysis possible but it didn’t necessarily bring
the success rate of the transplant up.
The doctor informed us that while this was great news, a live donor, if
we could possibly find a match, would be the best.
In finding a good
match for a kidney transplant they look at a lot of factors, but the main indicator after blood type(which
was already covered) is finding matching antigens (sort of the like the DNA
that makes up your blood type, there are thousands of combinations). Blood
relatives usually have a better chance of being the closest match. A good
sibling match can have 3 out of 6 matching antigens. There is only a 50 percent chance that
siblings will meet that criteria. However,
because of the fact that all of Ed’s immediate family also carries this disease
except one who was disqualified due to other medical issue’s a blood relative
match just wasn’t available.
Naturally as his
wife, I was the first one to be tested for a possible match (just as a side
note: my blood type is 0 negative which actually makes me a universal donor who “just
happens” to married to a universal recipient …opposites attract!!)
When I met my
husband I was 19 years old, he was 23.
Most of my life, I knew that God had a call to ministry on my life. As I grew older, that scared me to death. When
I finally went to Bible
College a year after
graduating high school, I went determined to get my degree and get back home. I
had no intentions of meeting anyone, especially someone that would be a
pastor. When I met Ed, it was by “accident”. We were complete opposites.
I like spicy foods, he didn’t.
I love the outdoors, especially the beach, he
doesn’t.
He likes sports, I don’t.
He
had lived in the same state, same town, and pretty much the same house all his
life. I had lived in 4 states, several
cities, and never lived on the same house for more than 5 years.
But there was something about “us” that we
couldn’t shake. We had a great time
together and I fell in love with his heart. All the normal attractions that
cause two people to fall in love were there, but we both will admit that it
always felt like there was more to our “us” than just us. It felt like we needed to be together for a
purpose.
At the risk of sounding completely stereotypical, it felt like a “God
thing”.
Two
months after we met for the first time, we were engaged and 8 months after that
we were married and starting life together in ministry. It has not always been easy and we have had
to work at being compatible. But no
matter how difficult, that “purpose”, has kept us, and through the years (21yrs
now) our differences have actually proven to be our strengths.
We had to laugh that
day as we sat at the clinic and discovered our opposite blood types actually
would work together because only God could take two people living in two
different states and bring them together and despite their opposite
personalities, cause them to fall in love, marry, and work together in ministry
for 21 years.
He planned “us” with a
purpose even down to our blood type.
We
waited for the results of the antigen testing to come back praying it would
match enough for transplant. For a non-blood relative those chances are 1 in
100,000. Sometimes God just does things that are really neat and this had
already been one of those times, but what was about to unfold in the next few
weeks was more amazing than we could ever have imagined…
“Now to him who is able to do far more abundantly than all that we ask or think, according to the power at work within us…”Ephesians 3:20 (ESV)
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