Mom: Well I’ll give you one of my kidneys baby.
Me: **Awkward laugh** Mom, this is not Steel Magnolias.
(Shame on you if you haven’t seen Steel Magnolias)

I should take you back to the beginning of this story. I can be pretty persistent. Some call it stubbornness. I call it determination. Well, I had to use my “determination” and pull some of my old reporting techniques, like repeatedly calling a source, with my newish kidney doctor. I had just had my second kidney biopsy in four years. My creatinine numbers, which is one way to measure kidney function, remained high and continued to climb even with the medication (Cellcept) I was taking. An option of doing infusion treatments called Rituximab, a chemotherapy drug, was being considered to see if it would help stabilize my kidneys. So the doctor thought it was a good idea to go in and see what was going on.

In short, kidney biopsies suck – big time. Only thing decent is you feel a little loopy with the drugs you put on – if you’re into that sort of thing. I am not. But I digress.
A large needle goes in the kidney to collect tissue. And then there’s the wait – like at least three hours after the procedure. A complete waste of time, but it’s hospital policy.

So after all that, I wanted answers. What exactly is going on in them there kidneys doc? I left message with the nurse and finally I saw the number pop up on my phone.  At the worst I thought I’d have to do the infusions, but nothing prepared me to hear the words: end stage renal failure. The only thing I could get out was “What?! Are you serious?!”
Oh, I forgot to mention that I was at my work desk when I got the news.

Turns out the lupus nephritis had a field day with my kidneys and so much damage had been done. It’s irreversible. I needed a kidney transplant. I rushed to the restroom to try to process what I was hearing. After getting off the phone, I stood in the bathroom mirror looking at what seemed to be a perfectly fine woman. Then the tears came. I quickly stopped them. Crying wasn’t going to help anything. In hindsight I should’ve taken more time to cry because as soon as I opened my mouth to ask my boss for the rest of the day off the tears came out like a flood. I was near hysterics.

After my boss dragged me off to a private office and calmed me down, I realized I didn’t know anything except that I needed a transplant. Did I need it soon? How do I get on the transplant list? What was my functioning level? I. knew. nothing. If there was one good thing that came out of the whole thing is that I know I’m loved. Nothing says “I love you” like folks offering up their kidneys.

I had to call my husband at work and tell him. Poor thing. He’s been with me through so many things, please believe we are living out our wedding vows to one another. I hate keeping stuff from him and I couldn’t wait until he got off.  My mom offered me her kidney and I wish you could’ve heard the conversation between me and my Dad. It was classic.

Dad: Well, I’m going to get tested and Fannie (his wife) will too and I’m gonna ask some other people too.
The fact that my Dad had unabashedly solicited folks for vital organs is unbelievable, hilarious and something only a parent would do. I love him for that. I should thank him for making me laugh on what was such a dark day.