Friday, October 15, 2010

My own hesitancy

All the way through this process I have been blogging about tests, doctor's appointments, and random thoughts within about 24hrs of the event, or the event that triggered the thought process. Yet at the biggest moment in the process thus far I hesitated to blog about it. Yes, I've been busy with work (its our busiest time of year) but the same way I always seem to find time to email my best friend, I know that it would be easy for me to find time to update here.

So why the wait? Why has it been over a week since I got the call before saying anythings? To clarify that just a touch, I got the call, my boss knew right away as she was in the car beside me, and I promptly called my hubby to share the news (left a voicemail), and texted my best friend. I called my mom within a few hours as I knew it would be a bit more of a conversation with her instead of "Hi, got approved for surgery, very excited! chat more later, love you, bye!" and I wanted to make sure I had that time.

But why didn't I blog about it? What was stopping me? In all honesty I don't know. I've thought about it, it being both 'I should post' and 'why haven't I posted about this yet', and I've got nothing. Although I do think I am making up for the lack of posts in as this is my third of the night. As for the time delay, the best I can come up with is I wasn't sure how I was going to share the news with the 'world' and needed to let my back-brain sort things out (back-brain is my subconscious, I often put problems there that I can't consciously figure out a solution to, and when my subconscious has figured it out, I become aware of the solution). After all that time and subconscious activity I would have thought my announcement would have been accompanied by a bit more fanfare, however I am just not that good at coding and didn't know how to make fireworks go off when you got to my blog. That and they would be almost like a pop-up ad which I despise more than anything. So no fanfare, just a simple announcement that has now been buried under 2 additional posts. Meh.

Thankfully, blogging is the only thing I have had some hesitancy about in this whole process. Yes, I do think twice about what I am doing, but do I ever doubt my decision? No. Not for a moment. I was on the phone with my mother last night and we were chatting about this, and again babies came up. Her thoughts are I shouldn't do anything that could potentially harm my *eventual* babies, that they deserved every opportunity I could give them. I countered with 'the recipient is some one's baby. They have a mother and a father and a family too. Don't they deserve the opportunity to live?' Her only comment to this was that I was her baby.

This goes back to my thought process: Just because I don't know someone doesn't mean their life is worth any less than mine. My kidney is not going to a dump, to someplace where it will be wasted and any potential health risks will have been in vain. My kidney is going to give someone another chance at life. Therefor, any and all risks are worth it.

So here's a question to you: what are your views on the value of life? on human nature? Do you believe that all people are inherently good? Or all are inherently bad and have to be taught to be good? Nature vs nurture?

5 comments:

  1. I completely agree that a stranger's life is just as valuable as anyone else's. I donated to a stranger, and the difference to his quality of life means a lot to me. As far as human nature, I believe that people are a lot better by nature than we have been led to believe. And I think that by donating a kidney, you are offering a great example for others. Congrats.

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  2. I also was an anonymous donor, though I have since met my recipient and his wife, who was a donor for another person, creating a chain. I never had any hesitation, even when the social worker asked me how I'd feel if the recipient turned out to be not someone of the highest moral character. I didn't think it was up to me to judge, nor, certainly to choose.

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  3. We are all inherently good. Unfortunately life changes that in some people. I donated a kidney to a stranger because I knew I could. We are all brothers and sisters on this earth and I do not believe we are here to lead a selfish life just looking to ourselves and immediate family. Giving someone their life back is the best gift in the world we could give anyone. I and a lot of others have had a chance to give that gift of life and I wish I could do it again.

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  4. I would welcome speaking to you.

    My organization, the Living Kidney Donors Network helps people who need a kidney transplant pursue living donation.

    I'm also helping many altruistic donors. I sent a few them your blog.

    Harvey Mysel
    www.lkdn.org
    harvey@lkdn.org

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  5. First I just want to say to all of you wonderful people that have been commenting, thank you for taking the time to read.

    I want to say I am humbled and thankful that there are so many wonderful donors out there. For a while I was starting to think I was the only one with this though process, and its energizing to know that I'm not.
    Cheers to you!

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