One year ago today, I was lying on an operating table, eagerly anticipating a kidney transplant. I was incredibly nervous about the surgery – this was really my first major surgery. I had gone through a lot with permacatheters and dialysis the year before, but none of that was quite the same magnitude as the surgery I was about to undergo. My little brother Randy was giving me an amazing gift. He was donating one of his kidneys to me. We had woken up on December 18, 2008 and left for the hospital at about 5 AM, with Lisa and my parents. It was kind of cold and snowy if I remember right, but we didn’t have any serious difficulty at that time of the morning. I remember getting there and checking in. They called Randy back first, and then after a few minutes, they called me. We changed into gowns in neighboring prep stalls. The doctors and anesthesiologists came to talk to us and tell us what was going to happen – and then in what seemed like an instant, Randy was wheeled back to start the operation. It wasn’t too long until I followed him. Most of the rest of that day was a anesthesia induced blur for me, and I don’t mean to try to retell the story here. If you haven’t read and want to know more details about the transplant, please look at the blog posts from a year ago.
I am incredibly grateful to my brother. Even before he selflessly gave me a kidney, he has been one of my heroes. He has always been someone that is just bearing fruit to everyone he meets. I am really proud of the man God has made him.
The new normal of having a working kidney again was just bizarre after close to a year on dialysis. When I first started dialysis, I had tried to order lasagna from the hospital. But – I was told I couldn’t, because it had cheese and tomato sauce. The phosphorus and potassium contained in those foods was just something that dialysis could not effectively handle, so they were now almost completely eliminated from my diet. On my first day of solid food after the transplant, I was getting scolded for my dialysis diet tendencies and actually given a supplement so that I could get enough phosphorus. I was limited on the amount of fluid I could drink while on dialysis to roughly 1.5 liters per day, since I wasn’t producing enough urine to eliminate all the fluid that I took in and the dialysis machine was removing about 5 pounds of fluid per treatment. Now, it was the opposite. I was being encouraged to drink as much as I could. That is still a struggle for me even after a year with a functioning kidney again. You get used to just having a little fluid with meals, and it is an adjustment to drink more often. It seems like I am constantly trying to force myself to drink to get a normal amount of fluid for someone that has never been through dialysis. It is an amazing difference. Probably the largest difference is the amount of time and freedom you get back. Dialysis kept you going to the center 3 times a week, for about 4 hours at a time. Without that commitment, it is amazing the freedom that gives you back as far as being able to take a trip or the like. That seems like a huge time commitment, but I am amazed now that it doesn’t seem like I have that extra time in my day. I know I haven’t been able to read nearly as much and I now have a backlog of books I want to read. That was one thing the dialysis chair really helped with, was providing a distraction free time (for the most part) for reading.
The contrasts above are pretty amazing to me. It is such a blessing to be the recipient of the gift Randy gave to me. God has been so faithful to both of us as we have recovered. Randy has run a few triathlons this year, and continues to pursue his PHD. I have had just another amazing blessing of becoming a father to Faith Randall Carlson (that might be part of the reason I don’t get as much reading in nowadays). It is amazing to me as I watch her grow and develop. She is just a remarkable and wonderful creation and more wonderful than is even possible in my limited imagination. I am so proud of her and just can’t wait for each and every milestone, even as I am warned that my life will drastically change when she becomes mobile by crawling and walking. I still can’t wait.
I am still just amazed at every lab test I get back and my creatinine level is 1.2 or less. That is something that hasn’t happened since probably before I was in high school. I just thank God continuously and am amazed at how he has carried me through both sickness and health.
When I think about this amazing gift from my brother, a kidney is not what I am referring to in the title of this post as the greatest gift. The greatest gift that has or ever will be is something we make a point to celebrate this time of year. God himself loves us so much that He took on flesh and died for us on a cross. Christmas points us to the incarnation – to Jesus coming to earth as a man. To me, it is not important if most scholars believe that Jesus’ birth was actually some time in the spring, I really enjoy advent and looking to Christmas and celebrating the fact that Jesus did come, and He came to die for us for the forgiveness of our sins, to pay the death penalty that we justly deserve and God declared as the penalty for sin. But even this amazing substitutionary sacrifice isn’t the end – Jesus conquered death and rose again to eternal life, and by faith in Him, we can share in this life and spend eternity with God. I am just awe struck by this gift and it is something no one ever could deserve. This love from God, this Gospel, this amazing grace, is the greatest gift that can ever be given. The sacrifice my brother made for me in giving up a kidney I am incredibly grateful for, but when I think of Randy’s gift of the kidney, Randy’s heart, and the risk and love he showed to me, it serves to point me to and make me think of Jesus, and the greatest gift that could ever be given that my Savior gave in His life, death, and resurrection. Have you accepted this gift?