After almost 3 weeks of chasing my tail in circles, because no lab would take my blood and let me ship it myself, I finally had blood drawn today to see if the recipient matches with me. Now the vials are in an overnight package and will be crossmatched tomorrow in Richmond, VA. As I sealed the boxes, I also sealed my faith.
“It’s in Your hands now, God. Ok well technically they’re in a FedEx delivery personnel’s hands, but you know what I mean.”
In case you missed the first post in this blog, I’m referring to kidney swaps and exchanges, where donor/recipient pairs will trade organs. For example, Donor 1 is unable to donate to Recipient 1, so he can donate to Recipient 2 (which in this case is Mitchell). Recipient 2’s donor (which in this case could potentially be me) would then donate to Recipient 1 (unfortunately I don’t know her name, but have an image in my head of what she looks like ~ similar to when reading a book and visualizing the character’s face). This criss cross exchange is a very effective way of managing incompatible donors and recipients.
I went through the same testing process with Mitchell’s blood last spring, but apparently our antigens wouldn’t get along — how rude, right? Which is really ashame since the doctors initially thought our cells would play well together in the sandbox operating room.
His Mother was also tested recently.
“I have a deformed kidney and have never been tested for Mitchell because of that reason. Dr King decided last week to test anyway. My Dad said that it may be God’s plan for me to be the donor and that my kidney may be fine!”
The thought of this becoming a reality really touched my heart, and I wished that her father would be spot on in his prediction. Unfortunately though, they were not a match afterall.
I’m not a scientist, far from it actually — calculators are needed for simple math equations. I also know very little about the technical compatibility requirements of organ transplants, but it’s hard to understand why someone’s own Mother — the person who helped conceive him, the person who welcomed him into this world through labor, the person who literally shares his DNA — couldn’t save her son.
But instead of trying to comprehend or make sense of something that ‘is what it is’ — I accept it and believe in the depths of my soul that there is a bigger reason behind it all. Perhaps his Mother needs the energy and focus to care for Mitchell, and undergoing major surgery would put her own health at risk. Perhaps there is another candidate who can withstand the transplant, allowing her to be a superhero to her son with time, attention, and uninterrupted TLC.
This makes me think of the song by Garth Brooks:
Sometimes I thank God for unanswered prayers
Remember when you’re talkin’ to the man upstairs
That just because he doesn’t answer doesn’t mean he don’t care
Some of God’s greatest gifts are unanswered prayers.
I’m not a Mother and can only imagine what it must be like for her to watch Mitchell suffer for over a decade. Despite the long road travelled and tears shed along the way, we hold onto hope. We hold onto faith. We hold onto miracles. We hold onto each other.
And, we even believe in unanswered prayers.
save mitchell 
Leave a Reply