I don't even remember how I found out about this guy's blog, but I check in on it every couple of weeks or so. http://cfhusband.blogspot.com/ His pregnant wife was diagnosed with Cystic Fibrosis, chose to have the baby against the odds and with much risk, and since then, the baby girl has been born, and the wife is on an active transplant list for a double lung transplant. When I first started reading this blog, things were bleak. God has done amazing things - day by day, step by step.
One thing I found myself doing was thinking about how tired this guy must be. Months of living in a hospital, carrying the weight of his wife's situation and now a baby girl - he must be incredibly tired. Oftentimes the caretakers are overlooked, not on purpose, but just because the trauma and care given to the one terminally ill outweighs everything else.
But I have been there. Not as a spouse or even as a parent, but as a sibling. When I was 16 years old, my younger brother (who was 13) was diagnosed with a terminal kidney disease. Day by day, week by week, month by month, I walked it, heard it, prayed it, saw it, smelled it, screamed it, cried it - with my parents and my brother. Looking back, I was the overlooked one. I do not say this to bring a negative light on my parents or others, because they could have done no better. My Christian walk was not strong enough within itself to help me stand firm on my own. I just had not learned to do that nor was I, honestly, in spiritual shape to do so. Living far from God and most of the time, in rebellion against my parents, I know that I must have added a layer of pain and distress to my parents that I could not have imagined then. (But oh, after being the mother of three daughters - oh, I know so well that layer!)
During my senior year in high school, it was evident that my brother would need a kidney transplant. Standard procedure is that immediate family - if they are willing - would be tested to see if they were a close enough match to share one of their kidneys. My dad, mom, and I all were tested at Duke Medical Center. Out of the three, I matched the closest to my brother. However, after some deliberation, my parents decided that it would not be a good idea for me (being so young and getting ready to start college) to donate one of my kidneys. I remember being so very disappointed and angry at my parents from keeping me from doing this one important thing for my brother. Now, in hindsight, I can understand their concern about having both of their children in surgery at the same time and then worrying about any future problems with me.
So, after a rocky and extremely laborious time, I conceded (there was nothing else I could have done anyway - I was only 17 years old - and could not have signed the consent forms for myself). My mother then stepped forward to give my brother one of her kidneys. Literally giving life back to him for the second time.
On the eve of my freshman year of college, we moved to a short-term apartment in Durham while my mother and my brother went through the last phase of testing and preparation for the "live" kidney transplantation.
