New Year, New Outlook

Happy New Year!  And what a 2010 it was!  Thank you for being there for me through such a difficult yet victorious year. 

It's been a little over six months since the surgery and within that time there have been no new developments as far as the kidney goes, which is great.  No news is good news now.  I'm feeling great, I have my energy back, life has returned to normal... well as normal as I could hope for.  I continue to take several medications and vitamins twice daily, but considering the alternative, bring it on.

Rob is doing very well.  After a little while after the surgery, he returned to normal as well.  He no longer feels any discomfort, the only things that are different are the scars that remind him of the surgery. 

Brooke understands that I still have what she calls an "owie".  And mommy's doctors are constantly taking care of my owie.  And they are, my doctor visits are becoming less frequent ( again a good sign), but I am still getting blood tests done and my doctors are monitoring me closely until the first year.  The first year is the highest risk for rejection. 

Next month, I'll be giong back to the hospital for a routine biopsy of the kidney.  This will give doctors a detailed picture of how the kidney is doing.  Blood tests can only tell so much and once any damage in the kidney is picked up in the blood tests, it would already be too late.  So next month, I'll be going in for a quick procedure, but I'll need to stay in the hospital for half a day.  They say I'll be sore for a couple of days, but then back to business once again.

I've not only been through some physical changes for obvious reasons, emotionally it was a journey as well.  Of course, I've shared with you the emotions I went through, the ups and downs before and during the surgery.  But I never bargained for having to go through more emotions after the surgery.

In the last six months, I've started to lose some relationships in my life, not only friends, but family as well.  All of a sudden those relationships changed drastically.  I couldn't understand why some people were mad at me.  But through conversations with mutual friends and family members, I found out they were upset  because when I initially asked for help in the form of an email.  They thought it was impersonal and downright rude. 

I didn't know how to react of course, but to be utterly shocked.  At first, I understood and remembered that I knew I might offend some people with the email, despite my true intention.  I thought the offense would be coming from the question, but not from the form the question was posed.  But I simply respected their opinion and let it go.  But that changed when I heard some were not only misjudging me, but misjudging Rob.  It's one thing to judge me and bad-mouth me, but it's another when they do that to someone I love and care about.  Mama Bear's claws come out and they don't retract!

So of course my natural instinct was to defend myself and him, but how do I do that when they didn't even call me to ask me or to talk about it in the first place nor will they now since they've cut me out of their lives.  I figured the only thing that'll make me feel better is to get it out on my blog and be done with it, but also realizing that maybe some of you at one point felt the same way they did, so I'm simply clarifying a couple of things... just in case.  I know now I can't make every one happy, but myself.

I'm pretty sure I've already covered it in my initial email, but asking for help first of all was not something I did easily.  I was reluctant and will continue to be if I have to revisit that ordeal in the next several decades.  And to be honest, yes I was selfish at the time, my only motivation for the email was to save my own life.  I didn't have the time to sit there and think how do I offend/insult a mass amount of people at once.  And trust me, time was of the essence.  I didn't have that luxury to come up with an evil plan of some sort.

Also, I was not and still am not strong enough emotionally to handle rejection after rejection.  Out of the 500 people I emailed, I couldn't imagine getting 500 "no's".  And the ultimate reason for asking for help via email was I didn't want to back anyone in a corner, I wanted to give every one a way out.  Imagine if I said, "Hey let's go to dinner!"  Then in the middle of our meal, I ask you for a kidney. 
As I had stated in the past, donating an organ had to be voluntary, the last thing I wanted to do was force someone into it out of obigation.  I thought I was clear about that, but obviously not enough.

And then beyond that, some people assumed that I had to ask other people for help because Rob wouldn't help me.  And that couldn't be further from the truth.  Since the beginning before any one else knew I was sick, Rob has been the first person to say he wanted to get tested.  My doctors told me to ask everyone I know in case he wasn't a match, again things were happening simultaneously because time was of the essence, so I didn't have time to see if Rob were a match and then ask people.  This judgment against Rob made me livid.  Not only was he there for me, he continues to be above and beyond anyone else!

I guess I find it ironic that the ones who cut me out of their lives are ones who never even bothered to call me to ask what was going on.  They simply made assumptions and harsh judgments and left it at that.  I guess my relationship wasn't important enough for them to salvage and now that feeling is mutual.

This emotional journey has changed me.  People have considered me to be naive in the past and I guess in some ways I was walking around with beer goggles on when it came to people.  I always saw the good in people, unfortunately now, this experience forced me to see the bad as well.  I'm angry about it because I could've coasted through life never needing to know some people's true colors. But I have and I can't change that reality now.

It's made me rethink my relationships, friends and family included.  I truly believe life is too short, so now I spend time and keep relationships with people I truly want to.  I'm pickier I guess.  So much so, I've recently cleaned out my Facebook friends list.  It felt really good. 

This blog has been therapeutic for me in many ways because again it allows me to express myself once and only once and I leave it up to other people to choose to read it or not.

All I ask is for you to keep an open mind and to try to consider what I was going through and I hope upon hope you will never find yourself in my shoes because no matter what you will never truly understand the scope of my actions.  You don't need to agree with me, but please respect my actions.

One of my friends reminded me of the good in some people, "Jenny, you could've asked me on a Post-It note and I would've helped you.  I didn't care how you asked me, just ask me."
(I removed the expletives...)  It did make me wonder if those who were offended, would've truly even helped.  I'll guess I'll never know.

Thank you again for reading and I hope you continue to find the value in our relationship as I do.

Jenny