The first one...

This is the first in hopefully many posts I will create over the next couple of months and beyond. Tricia and I, my wonderful friend and giver of life :-) , wanted to pass our stories on to you, our family and friends, to give you an idea as to what we would be dealing with in our journey. This is a first for me in so many different ways, the first thing being that I have never had major surgery before. I had an initial operation when they created my fistula in my arm (check this link if you don't know what a fistula is http://www.vascularweb.org/patients/NorthPoint/Dialysis_Access.html ) but this is the first where I will be on an operating table for an extended period of time. One of the common questions I get about the surgery is "are you afraid?" My answer to that is no, I am not afraid. In this 3 year journey, I have not been afraid of anything. It may sound unusual, but God took that fear away from me a long time ago. It was the fear of finding out about my kidney disease in its beginning stages that made my condition more worse than it had to be. So I learned from that mistake, and now I submit myself totally and fully into God's hands, and the hands of the surgeons, nurses, and anesthesiologist that will care for me. I certainly want to help create an environment of positiveness and faith as I face this, but I can't operate on myself, you know? LOL I have to trust others, and I trust God to guide the hands of the surgeon as they operate on me. I've described to others in this way....it's like jumping off a cliff into the beautiful ocean. You submit yourself to gravity and it's pull on you as you fall, knowing that the safety of the water is below you. There is freedom in that act of jumping into the unknown, knowing that whatever happens, God will be there as my "ocean".

The best way to describe how I feel is that I am eager. Eager to begin my new life with a new kidney. Being on dialysis has been a blessing in so many ways, but I am gone from my family 3 nights a week at 5 hours at a time. That's 15 hours of my kids lives that I have missed over the last three years that I can't get back. I've missed numerous concerts, games, Halloween celebrations, laughing and hanging out with them. I am eager to regain that part of my life again. I'll talk about the food I've missed in another blog entry :-), but having the freedom to eat or drink what I want again is an added bonus. No more having to worry about setting up treatments when we go on vacation to see our families and friends. But most of all having a new lease on life is the most awesome part of this tremendous blessing Tricia is giving me. A future...thank you again Tricia for this. Your gift will not be taken for granted, I can guarantee you that.