Habemus Donator

The past 3 days were busy days. Spending time in hospitals trying to complete the requirements for a kidney transplant and other concerns. Just today, I had ultrasound of the whole abdomen in the morning, had my IJ catheter replacement in the afternoon, and now seated for my Wednesday hemodialysis session. This place is beginning to feel like a second home. Even the security personnel manning the parking lot allows me to park in the area reserved for doctors’ vehicles. 

Now I am awaiting results of the ultrasound. I heard the doctors conversing earlier. Both kidneys with cyst, gall bladder with stone and polyp, normal-sized liver and pancreas. If there was more, I missed it. But we’ll know more when I get the findings. Hopefully, what I overheard won’t disqualify me from being considered for a transplant. There will be more tests to undergo. Right now, I have no idea if I will pass them all or, if ever, when I am going to pass them. I just need to do this. I owe it to all my loved ones, most especially Ninette.  

In keeping with current world news especially the honeymoon between the new Pope and the media, I want to also highlight, Habemus Donator! From the latin donare, meaning, ‘to give’. Yes, as previously revealed in my last entry, Ninette, my beautiful wife, has voluntarily, on her own freewill, come forward to declare that she will be my kidney donor. And that makes me immensely happy and proud of her.

I have tried to stir her away from it. I didn’t want to subject her through the whole exercise, from the numerous tests to the surgery itself and the recovery. I didn’t want to interrupt her life and career with this complication. She of all people, who is afraid of needles and has a low pain threshold. But she’s with me every step of the way. She’s so strong and brave. 

Ninette is a busy woman. Super actively involved in her mathematics research, plus advising and writing papers with her MS and PhD students, and other mathematics professors abroad, plus consulting as designer of a popular Japanese calculator brand and writing exercise books for them. She even teaches a 5th grade gifted class in ICA this week. And she returns to Ateneo de Manila this April after her sabbatical, to teach and do administrative work. I’m sure I have missed other things she is mixed up in. She’s inexhaustible. And still, even after being aware of what it takes to be a kidney donor, willingly steps forward and be part of this journey of mine, in the most meaningful way.

Did I tell you I’m immensely happy and proud of her? I am so blessed. Habemus Donator!

Shhh... Don’t tell her about this ;)