If it's Saturday, it Must Be a Dialysis Day

I'm one of nine people sitting in a chair with tubes running into a catheter or a fistula. I'm the only one who is awake, which I blame on being a morning person. I generally don't do any work on Saturday's, so I spend my computer getting caught up on some of the other blogs I read.

Before they started tapping into my fistula I would write pretty consistently. With the fistula I'm limited to typing with my left hand. It's not a problem, but it does make for slow writing.

I can finally say that going to dialysis three times a week is starting to get old. I'm glad enough for the results I get, but I want to feel like this without spending four hours connected to something that looks like a second cousin to R2D2. To that end, there's been a little movement on the transplant front.

A co-worker has decided that she wants to get tested to see if we're a match. One of my sisters is also giving donation some serious consideration. My sister actually gave me a good picture of what the transplant question looks like from the perspective of a potential donor.

No surprise, the idea of having an organ removed and given over to someone else is a big thing. Generally not something one does on impulse. As she explained it to us, wanting to do this for her brother isn't a huge leap. Of all the factors that make up the decision, that's the easiest one to get behind.

The challenging part is getting behind being off work for 2-3 weeks. My sister is self-employed, so she gets paid when she works and she doesn't when she doesn't. She says that's manageable, which it is, but that's another reason donation isn't done on impulse.

The other factor, the one that I don't know a person will ever get an answer for, is the emotional aspect of giving up a part of your body's infrastructure. Sure, we're  more than the parts that make up our physical being, but from a practical standpoint, it's surgery to remove an organ. Science bumping up against the spiritual.

So, we'll see how this turn out. I want my sister (anyone, actually) to be at peace with their decision. I've made the intellectual case with my sister. She's seen the videos that explain the process for both the donor and the recipient, so while she may have more questions down the road, she's seen enough to start the process of processing.