Jan 3rd is a special day for me.
It's Jennifer's Rebirth day.
Jan 3rd, 1994 Jennifer received a Kidney-Pancreas transplant.
She had been on the transplant list after being diagnosed with kidney failure and having to rely on dialysis to live.
The wait was excruciating. In 1994, people on transplant waiting lists carried pagers to enable notification.
Several times there were "false alarms". This was either being a secondary transplant candidate, or being rejected due to immunological reasons.
This meant that she waited for a second page to come in or stay home.
Finally she got the page, about 9pm while we were at a friends house for a post New Year get together.
We gathered her hospital bag and drove to Washington Hospital Center. After a wait she was scheduled for a final dialysis with the transplant surgery scheduled for the morning.
I was sent home as the preparations excluded me and they would call after the surgery and recovery and she could receive visitors.
The weather was poor, snow and sleet had moved in to make things slippery.
On Jan 4th, I got the call that the surgery was successful and that Jennifer was in a room, but would probably be pretty out of it for a while longer.
On the 5th I went out to find one of my tires was flat, so I had to get up to a local place to get new ones.
Once I got to the hospital the word was that everything was as expected, the new kidney and pancreas were working.
As predicted, Jennifer was still recovering and was confused.
She got better, but had to have some additional surgeries related to the pancreas and how it drains.
She stayed at the hospital for a while. I managed to contract the flu and Jennifer had to stay with friends for a week while I recovered.
Recovery was long, the effects of Diabetes and the kidney failure were very hard on Jennifer.
Due to those issues it was several years before she was able to resume a normal life.
But it did happen.This long winded post is a round about way of getting to my yearly message.
Jennifer's kidney and pancreas gave her an additional 29 years of life.
A young girl in the Pittsburgh area died, and her parents agreed to donate her organs.
Jennifer was not the only person who benefited from this extremely generous gift that transformed their grief into hope for many.If it fits within your beliefs, Please become a transplant donor.
So many people have been helped by organ transplants and been given a gift of life.
But it takes a decision on your part to make it happen
Give the gift of life.
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