And so it begins

Remember how I told you that my cousin needed a new kidney? Well, after talking with my beloved and my parental units, I have decided that I am going to start the screening process. I know that I have a matching blood type (provided that Red Cross knows what it's doing), so that is one hurdle out of the way.

Tomorrow, I am going to call the donor coordinator and tell her that I am interested. Hopefully, she will send me a blood test kit and my kidneys and I will be off on a wonderful adventure. Although I will admit that the idea of surgery gives me a touch of the willies (I have never even broken a bone before), I am very psyched at the idea of being able to help Amy out. I am going to keep an ongoing record of this whole process from now until I either get booted out of the running or finish my post-surgery recovery.

I have to say that it is wierd trying to think about a decision this big without really knowing all the details. Normally, I am a totally detail oriented person, and I like to have all my little rubber duckies in a row before I make any decisions. I'm not sweating the small stuff here. I know, beyond a shadow of a doubt, that I want to do this if possible, and it doesn't really matter to me how the details fit together.

For example: I would like to make this as easy on my class as possible. Having a teacher who is gone a lot is hard on kids. But I also know that these kids will adjust and get over any stress they might have from me missing several weeks of school. They are young and I would leave them in the hands of a competent substitute. Amy, on the other hand, cannot adjust and get over her kidney problem. It is something that needs to be dealt with and it has its own agenda. So, although I know how I would like it to go, I am not sweating the details.

The one concern I had was that I would not have enough sick days built up to cover the majority of the absence. After all, we are living on a pretty tight budget and not getting a paycheck one month would make a big difference. Turns out that I have 19 days of sick leave right now (according to my calculations, I need to verify this) which will cover about half of the absence. Not too shabby. Between that and our savings, we can definitely manage.

People keep telling me how "commendable" and "impressive" my decision is. I know what they mean, and I would probably say the same to someone if they told me they were giving up a body part for someone, but I don't feel impressive. I just feel like I am doing the only possible thing. If I have the opportunity to save someone's life, how can I ignore it? I wouldn't walk away from someone who needed CPR or the Heimlich (not even if it was Bill O'Reilly!). So how can I not give this a shot? I am a young, healthy individual. If anyone can afford to take this risk, it is me. Besides, who would I message with if Amy were busy at dialysis 3 days a week? C'mon. I need my chats.

Okay. That's enough for now. I have tons of grading to do. But I have many more thoughts about this rattling around in my head. I will keep you posted.