A Thumbs Up From Grandma

The most awesome Grandma
in the world (and my brother)

I got a call from my Grandma today. Seems she was out for lunch with my mom, my aunt and my uncle. My mom let them know what I was considering.  I hadn't told my grandma yet for a few reasons.  First of all she is 86, my biggest champion and I don't want to do anything to wreck that.  She also worries about everyone and everything. She's had a bit of a tough year and I didn't want to add to that by making her...well worry. It turns out I didn't need to be concerned.

Grandma let me know how proud she was of me and what a good thing she thought I was doing.  She mentioned that her financial planner's wife got a kidney last month-like it was an everyday thing.  She has been waiting for at least 8 years.  They have 2 teenagers and basically they haven't been able to travel or do anything families do for over 8 years because of her dialysis. They have machines in the house and everything for it.  A month after her transplant, she is a new woman. She is off dialysis and her machines at home can now go to someone else who needs them (I didn't realize that in some cases there are even waits for machines in order to do dialysis at home but that makes sense as I imagine they aren't cheap). Its amazing how many people I am coming across who know people affected by kidney disease.

I made sure to tell my grandma how worried I was that she would worry (gee, where do I get my worrying from!) and she said "Laurie, I worry about everyone and everything all the time anyway.  Its nice to have such a positive thing to worry about". She also made a comment about how its typical Lauren to plan to do something like this and be so quiet about it...not want any fuss or talk about it.  I told her this time I am going to be different.  I want to talk to people about it and I want people to ask questions. I would like people to understand and at the very least least not look at people sideways when they say they want to do this.  So in the coming days and weeks regardless of how my donor eligibility goes, I am going to star spreading the word.

Grandma reminded me of something I said to her in the summer when I was in Ontario for a visit. I had told her I had a feeling there was something else I was supposed to be doing in my life, there were important things I still needed to do but I didn't know what they were yet. But that I would know when the choices were in front of me.  The more I think about things the more I think this is one of them. Grandma agrees.