“The road is long With many a winding turn That leads us to who knows where Who knows where But, I’m strong Strong enough to carry him He ain’t heavy, he’s my brother So, on we go His welfare is my concern No burden is he to bear We’ll get there For I know He would not encumber me He ain’t heavy, he’s my brother💙
I did not want to trick anyone for a few seconds but couldn’t think of a more fitting title to this post. Lol
OMGOMGOMG!!!
I received some HAPPY news!! It made my heart skip a beat, literally lol. It’s like something inside me shifted in a deep way, and I’m not the same me I was before. And, I just have to share!
I’m not having a baby, but…
It’s a……BOY!!! 💙
And I’m glowing! 🤣😂
I just found out I have a kidney brother!!!
I’m overwhelmed.
It’s the most heartwarming thing, to find out about the person I share a set of kidneys with.
This must be the same feeling expectant mamas feel when the ultrasound tech/doctor says “It’s a boy” or “It’s a girl.” (Yeah, I know they can’t actually know til the gender identity develops a few years later, but it’s still a happy moment) A surreal, awe-inspired feeling. And, it doesn’t even matter the personality or anything or if it’s mutual, just unconditional love.
Last year, I volunteered to give my kidney to the next person on the waitlist in the U.S. who I matched with.
January 2024 💚💙🫘
It was given to a fifty-something-year-old man in Minnesota.
I just found out!
I knew he’s in Minnesota (I’m in Pennsylvania) and that his transplant was a success (our kidney began working instantly after it was connected to his body), but did not know the age or gender.
I had a feeling all along that my kidney would go to a man. It was like a gut feeling.
I did not care about the gender or age of the person who would receive my kidney; everyone wants to live & be healthy, no matter our age/gender. But, I was slightly curious. At first, I was a little bit curious. Then that curiosity began to fade to where I was almost indifferent. Then after almost a year, the curiosity came back and more intensely. I thought I would never know.
I feel like an identical twin missing my other half as if we were separated at birth, a feeling that just crept up on me after around a year. Lol (I guess we’re not identical though as we don’t have the same exact anatomy 😆)
Now, I learned through my transplant team that he’s a 50-something-year-old man. We’re anonymous strangers, so that’s all I know.
It made me so happy to receive even just that little bit of information. Like an indescribable feeling. Happiness & warmth. Awe. It adds to my experience and makes the person less an abstract concept and more human in my mind. Just to have a general idea in my head of the person who traveled this journey with me and laid on an operating table the same morning I did, a few states away, so our destinies became one.
It made the whole experience really sink in.
To receive this news makes me even happier than I realized it would. 💙💙💙 It’s one of the most amazing happiest experiences of this whole life of mine. I did not know just what I was missing til I found out. There’s no way to even put it into words.
It’s like having a long-lost brother out there somewhere. He’s a complete stranger to me, yet he’s my own flesh & bl0od. He literally has a piece of me inside of him.
Now, I want to meet him 😆😭😍
I have two kidney brothers now because my kidney voucher recipient is also a man. Lol When we donate our kidney to “the next person on the waitlist,” we get to choose any specific person in the country to also receive a new kidney through our donation (we can choose five people, and the first one to receive the kidney, the others get canceled out. I made sure to only choose one so as not to get someone’s hopes up, then someone else gets it first, or so he wouldn’t have anxiety all along that maybe someone else would get it first and cancel out his place).
I looked for another stranger in need since I did not know anyone who needed a kidney transplant. I heard about a man who lives close to where I do who was in urgent need. After I donated my kidney to an anonymous stranger, he got his new kidney through my donation. I did get to meet him in person, and we’re friends on Facebook! 💚
Two new (kidney) brothers. How lucky am I?! 😁 Never had a brother before! 🫘
“Sometimes people are beautiful. Not in looks. Not in what they say. Just in what they are.” ❄️
In January 2024 when I was in Penn hospital after my kidney donor surgery I had a very special visitor. A stranger. She was like an angel.
I was laying in my hospital bed so sick and couldn’t even sit up. I had a catheter and IV’s in. My body was exhausted and super sick feeling.
A woman walked into my hospital room and introduced herself as a retired nurse named Donna. She was grandmotherly and had the most loving presence. She was going around to the hospital rooms to cheer up the patients and give us gifts. Coloring books and colored pencils and magazines and crossword puzzles, and journals and stress balls. And just various things to distract & uplift us.
I lovingly think of her as Nurse Donna.
The moment she stepped into my room and said hello my exhaustion & severe headache, that even IV pain meds/anti nausea meds wouldn’t touch, disappeared. I instantly sat up because of the surprise of how my body suddenly felt completely healed. She asked me if I minded her company. I said no. I was so thankful for it. I told her how her just being there seemed to heal me and that her presence & energy was just so warm & healing. She said she felt the same about me. I was surprised. It sounded so sincere. I wasn’t even telling her to flatter her or be kind or get a compliment in return. I was truly surprised and baffled.
No one else, even people I liked and the most uplifting people, made my body feel completely normal. I couldn’t even sit up when anyone else came into the room. I was so sick I had to stay an extra day in the hospital and have an extra IV because I couldn’t get up or drink anything.
Nurse Donna gave me various gifts. Then she held up something else. This bookmark in the picture here. She told me her young granddaughter, Turner, made it and told her to give it to someone special at the hospital, whatever patient she thought should have it most. The holidays were over so Nurse Donna wasn’t sure anyone would want it. She was hoping someone would because her granddaughter was so happy to have made it for “someone special.” She asked me if I would like to have it. She said she had a feeling I would.
I LOVE the holiday season & Winter. All year I wait for it to return. I told her that and that I would love to have her granddaughter’s bookmark. She was so moved and said she found the right person and was thrilled to tell her granddaughter later how much I love it. She told me some things about her family. It was so uplifting. I hope her granddaughter never outgrows making her beautiful gifts.
After she walked out of the room I experienced a sad feeling and sense of loss. I loved her presence and energy and felt like our conversation ended too soon. I felt there was more to know about each other. But she did not work there, she was only a visitor. So I knew I would likely never see her again. I just had this overwhelming feeling that I was “meant to” share more with her.
Not long later she returned to my hospital room. She apologized for the “intrusion.” She had the same feeling I did and felt the need to come back and express it to me before I even told her I had the same feeling. She said she felt like there was more to know about me. She told me she doesn’t usually ask too much about the patients, that she just gives them gifts, says a few kind words, and leaves. But me, she said she felt like I was “special.” I was so pleasantly surprised at the coincidence. She said something drew her back to my hospital room.
She told me she knew I was a transplant patient. That’s all the hospital staff was allowed to tell her. She asked if I would mind telling her my story but that she would understand if not. I was delighted. She is the very first person I had the honor of telling my experience to after my surgery.
I told her I just donated my kidney earlier that morning to the next person on the wait list here in the U.S. Just thinking about that gives me chills. It was the most amazing thing to get to say that out loud for the first time after almost twenty years of it being my dream. It was (still is) surreal.
Instantly her eyes filled with tears, and she just stared at me as if awestruck. She said it was the most amazing thing she ever heard and that she never met someone who has ever done something like that and that she couldn’t wait to tell the ladies in her group and her grandchildren. I remember her saying “You have no idea who has your kidney, and I bet you don’t even care, do you?” I said no.
She said she was so honored to be standing in my hospital room. Her grandson could have needed an organ transplant but thankfully it was prevented. She said she knew he would be so moved that she met a living organ donor.
She told me she hopes I live a long happy healthy life and have everything I ever dreamed of. That was so kind of her.
I just pulled this out to look at for the holiday season. I will hold onto it forever. It holds so much meaning and was made with love by a little girl who knew someone out there somewhere needed it. She signed her name on the back. How honored am I that of all the people in the city/hospital I’m the one to have received it. I wish so much I could find Nurse Donna and tell her I still have it & love it so she can tell her granddaughter.
Maybe one day I will. 🎄
After that encounter I never came across Nurse Donna again. But she’s one person I’ll vividly remember for as long as I live. I have a feeling we may cross paths again someday. I know she’ll remember me because it’s hard to forget an altruistic kidney donor 😆 The chances of meeting one are negligible, on a podcast episode I heard that we’re “statistically no one.” We’re less common than people who can wiggle both ears lol And I’ll know & recognize that loving energy & warm smile anywhere.
I love Nurse Donna the same as if we were friends. It doesn’t matter that I only knew her for less than a half hour and never saw her again, it feels like I know her whenever I think of her. Some people are that remarkable.
It’s amazing how one person can impact someone for life in just a few moments of knowing each other. And not because of anything they do or say but because of the pure love they radiate. 💚
Anyone who wants is welcome to share your own experience with a brief encounter with a kind stranger who touched your life for the better. I love stories like that.
(If anyone knows {retired} Nurse Donna who volunteers with Headstrong cancer foundation and gives sweet gifts to the patients at HUP, or her granddaughter, Turner, please direct her to this post. Thank you in advance lol)
I’m not always kind or pleasant and haven’t been for the last week with all the trolls and oppressors. I have been arguing & sh!tposting all week Lol I don’t believe everyone deserves kindness always.
But I never wish d3ath or suffering on anyone and in general would go to great lengths to stop it even for someone I don’t like. I have even been called an enabler and “mental” because of some of the people I would save.
I wouldn’t be friends with just anyone or let just anyone into my space. But there are very few people I wouldn’t go to great lengths to save (people who would use it for evil actions and have the power to in a large scale way) and no one I would get joy out of seeing them suffer.
This may be considered by many as not a good thing, but it actually is because even if it’s not good to help or care about “bad people,” my compassion embraces all the good and average people as well. There are way too many people who don’t care about anyone at all. I much prefer someone who cares about everyone than no one. To me just being a sentient being makes someone worthy of basic compassion. Kindness? Not necessarily. Forgiveness? Again, not necessarily. But compassion, yes. This isn’t a philosophy or argument, it’s just the way I naturally am. I have always been this way. I don’t expect everyone to agree, and most people probably don’t. I don’t think it’s necessarily better or worse, just different.
I’m also overly empathetic (empathy is different than compassion, but the two are often mistaken as the same) and cannot stand it. It’s mostly only with physical pain/suffering. When someone is suffering physically, even a terrible person or character in a fiction movie, I feel literally like I’m being t0rtured. I can’t bear it and can’t even watch those scenes. My compassion is something I have always experienced. But I think the empathy came later. I always had basic empathy just like everyone else, but the more developed empathy I have now I think came years ago after I began getting recurring devastating & debilitating headaches. It’s not a choice or train of thought or philosophy. And it’s not something I want. I can’t even watch horror movies I want to watch when there are too many graphic scenes because I feel like my own guts are being carved out. And after I turn it off it takes me a while to recover psychologically.
If I could flip a switch or give up a piece of myself to stop all the suffering in the world even for “bad people,” I wouldn’t hesitate even if it meant I had to take on some pain myself. I absolutely cannot stand illness & suffering. No matter who it is experiencing it.
This post is a bit late. It’s something I wrote for my one month kidneyversary. It was last month.
One cold January morning in the midst of a snowstorm two anonymous strangers in two different states, one in Pennsylvania, the other in Minnesota, laid on an operating table. Taking the plunge, together, risking it all. With one dream: life. One to give life, one to receive.
Sometimes I’ll be walking along a street and out of nowhere suddenly remember that someone else is living with a piece of me inside of them. Alive and well because I gave a piece of myself away. And I feel as if I could fall at my own feet in awe.
It hits at random moments, filling me with overwhelming joy, inspiration, takes my breath away. It’s something that can’t even be put into words. Truly indescribable. So beautiful. It’s an experience that took me months to fully process. The profoundness only began to truly sink in and register as the months went on because it’s an experience like no other, extremely rare & unnatural. It’s not everyday you get to meet someone who gives part of their body away to someone else to keep that person alive. It’s not everyday you get to BE someone who does that. Unless you’re me, that is 😆
I don’t even know their name, their age, or their gender. I have never seen their face. I never heard their story and maybe never will. But we are connected through life, forever. The only two humans on Earth to have shared that same organ. Intimate strangers. Two halves of the same whole. My perfect match. I love my recipient with my whole heart. Or with my whole kidney. It’s a strange experience to be able to love someone with this intensity never having laid eyes on them. A love that has nothing to do with liking, nothing to do with personality. A no strings attached kind of love. Unconditional. An unbreakable bond.
There is no greater act of love than giving a piece of ourselves away. And I am honored to have had the opportunity to experience a love like that.
A piece of me is missing, but I have never been more whole.
I like to think that my superpower is that I’m in two places at once and can pee for two. 😆
The experience of a lifetime.
Happy Six Months to us!!
Here’s to many, many more. 🫘🥂🎈💚
P.s. And, how lucky is my recipient, getting a piece of this? 😆
#livingkidneydonor #altruistickidneydonor
I hope you’re having a beautiful day or night wherever in the world you are! I plan to upgrade soon so I can have more storage space and share more pictures. 😁
Laparoscopic kidney donation scars at three months 💚🫘
It’s the most amazing experience to think about how two anonymous strangers in two different parts of the country both laid on an operating table on the same morning to become forever connected, an unbreakable bond formed. This is what it is to be “intimate strangers.” I have heard of that term now & again and never thought much of it or understood until that day my kidney began making pee in someone else’s body, someone I have never laid eyes on and probably never will. It will never fail to amaze me! Instead of fading, each day, that feeling of awe becomes deeper & deeper, and so does the joy and warm fuzzies. My scars are always a reminder of that beautiful experience. Whenever I step out of a shower and look into the mirror or take my pj’s off to get dressed in the mornings or wear a belly shirt and happen to see the scar near my bellybutton (the only one that’s really very visible with clothes on), I remember and smile.
Many living kidney donors feel strongly that we should be humble and not speak of our act of kindness and always divert the attention to somewhere else when someone else brings it up so as not to seem self important or arrogant or like we’re looking for recognition. In fact this seems almost like the consensus in the living donor community that it’s not to be talked about much outside of living donor spaces. But my experience is too beautiful not to share, and I am too thankful for the honor, to be so humble as to never speak of it. It’s like when moms share their birthing stories or brag about their kids, (usually) not acting like they’re better than other moms or childless women, just thankful for their own gift and celebrating by sharing. I don’t look for praise, but I acknowledge the fact that my act of compassion & courage is worthy of the kind comments it receives when it comes up. Sharing our experience as an act of gratitude is not the same as arrogantly boasting. I will always share my experience as a celebration & for awareness of living organ donation. If that gets me a few compliments along the way, I welcome them.
Three months later and I am 100% the way I was before my body lost a vital organ. No energy changes, no pain, no anxiety or depression, no complications, no lifestyle changes or meds needed. The first two weeks after the surgery were a bit challenging, but just less than two weeks after, I was jokingly asking if they even took the kidney because everything felt almost 💯. Any pain or discomfort I experienced only confirmed that I made the best decision. It reminded me of the pain & sickness my recipient must have been living in indefinitely. It’s a humbling experience to temporarily take on someone else’s pain & sickness so they can live a life without it.
Best thing I ever did!
It’s not for everyone, and there are (rare) potential risks for very very serious life altering complications (and death during and just after the donation surgery). But I encourage anyone it resonates with to consider learning about living kidney donation and possibly becoming a living donor, as there is an extreme shortage of kidneys for transplant. There are people dying & living in sickness who don’t have to.
If you don’t know anyone in need of a new kidney, you can become an altruistic (non directed) donor and donate to “the next person on the wait list,” like I did. (It’s really a system of people in need, and they find the best match depending upon various factors, not literally a list where there is a specific person who is “next” like with the deceased donor list.) It will potentially give the person 25+ years of life & health. Even if it doesn’t work, which is rare, living donor kidneys nearly always work long-term, it will remind the person their life matters and that someone cared enough to give them a literal piece of themselves to save & enhance their life. If you donate through the National Kidney Registry as a non directed/altruistic donor, there’s a chance you’ll save multiple lives by beginning a kidney chain. This means multiple transplants will take place that would not have if not for your altruistic donation. It’s truly incredible! This happens when a potential donor is not a match for their intended recipient, so they agree to donate to an anonymous stranger so their person will get the next kidney available. My kidney recipient had someone wanting to donate to them but wasn’t a match, so that donor donated to an anonymous stranger so my recipient could get the next available kidney. The next available kidney happened to be mine! So at least two kidney transplants took place involving my one donation, my recipient’s and the person’s who got the kidney of the person who wanted to donate to my recipient but wasn’t a match. Sometimes kidney chains are super long and span across the whole country, set in motion by one altruistic donation. It’s beautiful being linked to all these strangers through the gift of life.
If you have no one in particular in mind and choose to be a non directed/altruistic donor, you can also donate a kidney voucher to another stranger if you wish, one of your choice. You can look for someone to give it to, like I did. When we donate our kidney to an anonymous stranger, the National Kidney Registry gives us a kidney voucher to give to whoever we want, so that person will get a new kidney usually shortly after our donation surgery. It brings that person into the system so they’ll be matched with aliving donorkidney when one becomes available.
I have always been a universal lover and got to live it in action the day I gave my kidney to an anonymous stranger. 🫘
The wound is the place where the Light enters you. 💛
Look how perfect & beautiful my incision/scar is!! It looks so good. The covering stuff holding it closed just came off, so I can finally see it in all its raw perfection & magnificent glory.
It’s amazing how just six weeks ago I was laying on an operating table out cold & cut completely open to give life to someone else and already my body is so healed. The scar is delicate and perfect. So powerful in all its subtlety & elegance.
My beautiful life affirming scar.
Isn’t it amazing that a whole life was saved & enhanced because of this small, thin, & delicate line on my abdomen? Awe inspiring. Something so small and seemingly insignificant, just a thin line that no one else may ever see and will eventually fade to almost nothing and be nearly invisible, yet it’s a symbol of one of the most significant things there is to do: giving life. It takes my breath away.
I remember waking up in the operating room groggy and amazed. There was no pain. (Other than a migraine-like headache) I instantly remembered what I did. It was hours later, but it felt like mere seconds ago that I was there on that table going under while the doctors & nurses laughed & joked and played what I vaguely remember being “Oh, Pretty Woman,” by Roy Orbison, for me as I was drifting off.
I couldn’t believe I just had surgery. It felt too good to be true. My body felt strong, healthy, & alive, even with all the grogginess, exhaustion, and headache, and one less organ. I couldn’t believe it finally happened after all these years of dreaming. It felt so easy. All I had to do was lay on a table and go to sleep for a couple hours so someone else can live. For me, it was that simple.
It was an extremely easy decision to make. It was my calling. There was never any hesitation, uncertainty, or question about it. I heard the call and answered.
It doesn’t matter that I may never get a thank you or see the impact of my act of compassion. The potential is what matters, potential to save and enhance a life. And there is joy & value in the act of giving, itself, without getting any results or gratitude for the act. Just the act alone is enough. And it doesn’t matter that the person is an anonymous stranger I may never lay eyes on. We are all the same at our core.
You are Me I am You We are One
I remember waking up with three doctors and one nurse standing at the end of my hospital bed in the OR before being wheeled to my room, all cheerfully saying “Good morning, Kimberly, you’re awake now, Kimberly, good morning, Kimberly, you’re awake, Kimberly….” over and over and over until I fully came to. They were all wearing masks & hair caps. But I could see their smiling eyes. And I knew. I knew it was a success. That pleasant experience of them gently guiding me out of insentience is one of my favorite memories of the whole journey. It made all the difference, waking up to that human compassion & positivity gave me a very different experience than if I would have woken up alone in a dark room in a cold, clinical setting of uncertainty. I will forever cherish it.
So many healthcare workers were in & out of the operating room praising me for giving the gift of life & health.
The surgeon said our kidney is beautiful. While I was still asleep, it was already on its way to do its job and save a life. It began working instantly in its new person’s body.
And now I am here, with this permanent beautiful, perfect reminder on my body of that beautiful, perfect day.
1/16/2024
💚🫘💚🫘
#endthewaitlist
Happy National Kidney Month!!! 💚💋🍀
#endthewaitlist
I hope you’re having a beautiful day or night wherever in the world you are! 💚
On the late afternoon streets, everyone hurries along, going about their own business. Who is the person walking in front of you on the rain-drenched sidewalk? He is covered with an umbrella, and all you can see is a dark coat and the shoes striking the puddles. And yet this person is the hero of his own life story. He is the love of someone’s life. And what he can do may change the world. Imagine being him for a moment. And then continue on your own way.
Content warning ⚠️: last couple pictures are of my incisions. I requested a picture of the kidney after they removed it. 😆 But they haven’t sent it to me yet. Lol
On 1/16/2024, my lifelong dream came true.
I had the honor of becoming a living kidney donor, giving the gift of life to someone in need. 💚🫘 What a beautiful, rare, awe inspiring experience.
For almost as long as I can remember I have wanted to donate my kidney to a stranger, just anyone who could use my “spare.” When I was young, I read a heartwarming true story about a man who donated his kidney to the next person on the transplant list in the U.S. He said we are all the same inside, and he wouldn’t hesitate to do this for his own son, so it made no sense to him to hesitate doing that for anyone else. He said something along the lines of everyone he looked at is the same as his son, someone who wants to live, be happy, and healthy. I instantly recognized him as part of my soul family. I knew exactly what he meant. I KNEW then deep inside that that would be me one day giving my kidney to a stranger because everyone I look at is the same, the same as my own friend, my own family member, the same as me. There is no difference. That person is not my mom, not my brother, not my friend, not my child, not my spouse, not my niece, not my nephew, not me. But that’s someone else’s mom, daughter, husband, wife, friend, Grandma, coworker, neighbor, child and most importantly, someone. Someone who wants to live and be healthy. I have always had the gift of perfect health and endless energy. So after hearing again about altruistic kidney donation on the radio many years after that story, I decided to go for it, and after a long journey of medical & psych evaluation, interviews, paperwork, phone calls, more medical & psych testing to be sure I’m qualified…I woke up on Tuesday 1/16/2024 and chose to give life to an anonymous stranger in another state. Our surgeries were said to be flawless, and our kidneys are functioning perfectly. My doctors told me I was walking out of the hospital with one kidney just as healthy as when I walked in that early morning a couple days before with two kidneys. My only strict lifelong restriction is NSAIDS (Advil, Aspirin, Motrin…). No dietary restrictions, but I do have to be more careful than most with salt & things. And it’s especially important for me to stay hydrated now with one kidney. I need more water than most each day to keep my one lil bean happy. It’s doing the work of two! I have no doubt that my experience giving life to a struggling human is just as much a gift to me as it is to that person. 💚🫘
💚🫘“From the entire NKDO community, thank you for your selfless act of donating a kidney. Your extraordinary compassion and generosity are an inspiration to all of us.” 💚🫘Oneweek kidneyversary today and recovering so well!! 💚
Content warning ⚠️: incisions.
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They pumped my abdomen with gas to make room for the surgeon to work, so it’s bigger here
I’m so honored to have this experience! It’s the experience of a lifetime! 💚 To know a part of me is literally keeping someone else alive. My beautiful body is keeping someone else alive and working hard to heal & keeping itself alive. Most people don’t get accepted to donate a kidney because of health issues usually, even minor ones can get someone rejected. I am so lucky with my health and knew I had to share that gift with someone else. ♥️♥️♥️
I’m wishing you a beautiful day or night wherever in the world you are!
On January 16, 2024, my kidney will have its new forever home with a person in Minnesota!
I am going to share a set of kidneys with an anonymous person somewhere else in the country! 😭😍
My kidney is going to the next person on the waiting list in the U.S who I am a match for. My person was found in Minnesota! (I’m in Pennsylvania) That’s all the information they will give me. In altruistic donations like this, which are always anonymous, it’s possible even with very little information that the donor/recipient can potentially identify each other if they try, so they give us as little information as possible about each other to avoid that. Sometimes the transplant teams reveal the gender & age. I did not get that info yet. I may or may not later.
How amazing is this!!! What a rare & beautiful experience, to get to give someone else the gift of life through organ donation and while being alive. 💚💚💚🫘 🫘 🫘 It was a long journey of extensive medical & psychiatric evaluation to be sure I’m physically & emotionally fit to donate a kidney and so much paperwork. But here we are!In altruistic donations in the U.S it’s possible for the anonymity to eventually be broken, but the recipient has to be the one to initiate it. If the donor agrees, they can communicate. In some cases the recipient reaches out through the transplant center to thank & update the donor on how the transplant is working for them. In other cases, the recipient never does. Either way is good with me! I’m just looking to potentially help someone! 💚
My surgery will take place at 6:00am on 1/16/2024 at Penn Transplant Institute here in Philadelphia. Lefty will be shipped on an airplane to its new person. I get to keep Righty. I’ll be in the hospital for at least two days, no more than four days as long as there are no complications. They said most likely two days. I will be accepting visitors! All are welcome, even strangers! You can let me know in advance or just show up as a surprise (bringing gifts! It can be anything, I’m easy to please 😆 jk, just your presence is enough)! The more, the merrier lol
I couldn’t help it and ordered a sterling silver necklace with our transplant date as a mini celebration as soon as I was told my match was found and our date!! It wasn’t a wise decision because it’s not uncommon for transplant dates to change if donor or recipient wakes up with a sore throat that day or catches a virus just before or something changes with one of the surgeon’s schedules…But I couldn’t resist! So let’s hope so much it doesn’t change! The necklace was not expensive, but it would be a waste of material and time for the seller/creator on Etsy. But I’m hopeful and staying positive it will remain that date!!
Anyone want to guess the gender of my kidney sib? Girl? 🩷 Boy? 🩵 Other? 💜 I’ll see if we can get a gender reveal going lol
Content warning ⚠️: nothing graphic but mention of mental health issues, s*icidal inclination, r*pe(I have never experienced r*pe, myself, just briefly sharing that it happened to someone I used to know)
I did a thing! My heart was pounding so hard, my hands were shaking. I hesitated and thought I would back out. I even got dizzy. It wasn’t anxiety. It was fullblown FEAR. There was a sickly terror running through me. My body was in full fight or flight mode as if I was in literal life threatening danger. My gut was telling me not to, that it could only end badly. It wasn’t my intuition talking but my fear. There was a loud voice in the back of my head yelling at me not to. But something deep inside told me I had to. I had to know. My healing has made room for curiosity & concern, where there was no room before. The space in me was taken up by seemingly insurmountable pain & humiliation & fear & selfish love & coveting, despair. No room for curiosity or concern or selfless love. Until now.
Around a year ago, I shared a deep, raw, honest, heartfelt post about when I was rejected by a woman I was secretly (never told anyone about her or this experience til last December when I posted it here) head over heels in love with for so many years and how that experience has deeply affected me in both pleasant & not so pleasant ways to this day. She was 45 years old, I was 27 years old when I confessed my love for her. I met her when she was 40 years old, and I was 21 years old.
I loved her since that very first moment I laid eyes on her, when I saw her across the crowded room, and the world suddenly stopped spinning.
I know that it might sound More than a little crazy but I believe I knew I loved you before I met you I think I dreamed you into life I knew I loved you before I met you I have been waiting all my life
This is what it felt like upon finding her. It felt like finding my other half, like we were the two halves of the same whole.
She was my everything, the love of my life, and I thought she would be by my side forever. I sent her messages telling her that, and she unfriended and ghosted me without a reason given or any response. I was utterly ruined. I agonized for years over why she did not want me even as an acquaintance or casual online friend, yet she had so many others she loved, even strangers. She’s a universal lover like me. Everyone is welcome in her world. But not me, the one I felt loved her most. This shattered meto my core. I would have instantly laid down my own life for her if necessary.
After she rejected me, I stalked her social media accounts for years in absolute despair.All of her stuff has always been public. She did not block me, just unfriended and stopped communicating with me. Before this, we were hardly even acquaintances but did occasionally communicate through her Facebook posts. She never initiated contact with me, but she did respond to my comments to her. After she cut me off completely, I read her blog, watched her YouTube videos, still looked at her Facebook and Instagram accounts, til eventually it got to be too much, and I stopped looking for years but still loved her. Then, with lots of conscious work, I became indifferent to her. I stopped the online stalking and moved on. It was the only way for me to emotionally survive.
The rejection destroyed me, and I thought I would never recover. It took me YEARS (even after no longer looking at her social media for years) to get over her and the rejection. The rejection physically sickened me, I had headaches for weeks after the initial rejection, I fell into a very deep major depressive episode for months. Through the years, every now & again, another depressive episode would be triggered, especially if I looked at her social media accounts/blog/YouTube while in a low mood.
Especially when I saw her with other people, especially when I saw her with him. Words can never express the deep pain that ripped through my entire being to see that other people got to have access to her, be loved by her, had the gift of her time and presence but not me. And not understanding why because we have all the same views, interests, values… we’re so, so alike. She’s very social and was always around people, hanging out with people. She cherished and prioritized platonic friendship, like me. She would take pictures of her friends and write about how much she loved them. She would share pictures of them laughing together at restaurants and cafes. While I was happy that she had people to love and be loved by, so much of me was beyond jealous and just shattered that I couldn’t be one of them. It just k!lled me. Through the years, I would look at her Instagram account after she unfriended me on Facebook (I did not have an Instagram account back then), and see her with other people and fall into a deep, s*icidal depressive episode, sometimes for months. I would ask myself why. Why I wasn’t good enough for her but they are. This triggered me to feel not good enough for anyone. Before her, I had amazing self esteem, maybe a little bit too much self esteem. I admit it. In my last December post (2022) about her, I share that now I’m glad she humbled me because I thought I was all that and a bag of Skittles. Lol I was arrogant. I’m glad I’m not anymore.
Every now & again, I still experience a hint of that feeling that I’m not good enough for anyone and have nothing to offer, as a result of her rejection. I internalized it as not being good enough. A feeling that no matter what I have to give someone, someone else can give better or more so why would anyone want me. It still lingers today. It’s not a constant feeling, an insecurity that comes & goes. Sometimes I’m hesitant to reach out to people for this reason. Before her, I never had this feeling, before her I thought I was the sh!t who could love someone better than she has ever been loved before, that I had everything to give, that my love was unique and rare and shocking because of how deep and whole it is. Like I mention in my other post, she knocked me down a few pegs, and I never quite got back up. But that’s ok, it’s part of living. It’s nearly impossible to get through life without any scars. Also, she did nothing wrong by rejecting me. However I interpreted or responded to it is my issue, not hers.
I had to work for years to become indifferent to her because the memories were so painful. She brought me immense joy to think of but also so much pain.
For so many years, I could not let myself be curious about her. I couldn’t think about her in an attached way to be concerned. It was destroying my mental health. My love for her became dormant. Memories of her no longer brought me joy or pain. Eventually I pretty much stopped thinking of her at all. Last year I decided to share a post about her inspired by a post I saw for Pride Month asking us to share about our first heartbreak if we aren’t heterosexual.It took me six months to complete. It was exhausting to write, but I loved writing it. I loved revisiting that joyful and agonizing experience. Writing that true story helped heal me so much and made me realize I had so much pain and pent up emotion in me about the whole situation. I realized I never stopped loving her. Now after ten+ years, I am able to release it all and set it free and go back to loving her but with a selfless detachment.
I love her deeply. I always have. I never stopped loving her and never will.
I recently decided to look her up online, something I told myself I would never ever do.
The reason I looked her up now is I am now strong enough and healed enough to think of her and be affected by the memories without crumbling. Everything I suppressed & repressed has been released and let go. It made room for other things.
I realized I have been very very concerned about her safety. I wasn’t even sure if she’s still alive. I did not want to think that or mention it, but it’s true. I began entertaining the idea of looking her up online to be sure she’s at least alive and hopefully ok.
She has been dangerously s*icidal off & on for many years. She even has a history of attempts and hospitalizations. She struggled immensely with mental health, self esteem, body image, relationships, addiction to prescription pills,she lost her job when I last knew her years ago (they did not have enough money to pay all their employees and let a few go, including her). She was a very successful career woman with an advanced college degree. She was at one point a college instructor. But she always felt like a failure in life. She was very open about this.I always felt like she was out of my league. This wasn’t in a negative, self deprecating, insecureway, just a matter of fact kind of way. She was successful, educated, driven. I was just an undergraduate college girl with average grades and then after college, a food server/cashier at a food serving place where I worked for many years while living at home with parents. She was warm, compassionate, understanding, humble, never in any way arrogant or judgemental of other people’s jobs, living/financial situations. She never saw anyone as inferior. This is not why she rejected me. She even dated men who were less educated and less successful than her. (She’s bisexual but mostly into men and mostly only dated men)
She was r*ped many years before I met her, and it devastated her life & mental health. She struggled with aging. Each birthday, especially milestone ones (like 40 years old) put her at risk for a s*icidal depressive episode that could result in hospitalization. She could not stand getting older.
Since I am now able to think about her, my concern for her got the best of me. I was terrified of what I would see if I looked her up. My body turned to jelly the same way as if it was a close friend or family member I was concerned may have died by s*icide. I was surprised about that. While I care equally about almost everyone, it’s different when it’s someone we know, personally or are close to. It hits harder usually or a different way or has more emotion involved. I haven’t communicated with or seen anything by her on social media or in person in over seven years. At some points I rarely even thought about her. So it was surprising to experience the impact she still has on me all these years later.
She’s popular enough that she is the first person who showed up in the search engine when I put her first and part of her last name in. She’s an editor, writer, public speaker, journalist…
My finger hoveredover her name in the searchbox (there was a very small thumbnail picture of her next to her name, I could see she was smiling in it, which was comforting). My heart pounding. I wasn’t sure I could or would go through with it. I asked myself if I really want to do this. I had no idea what I would find or what emotion would overcome me. But I had to know, if I did not look her up again, thoughts that she may not be alive today, that maybe she died by her own hand, would be eating at me and were getting stronger & stronger. I had to know. I had to click her name.
So I did. I clicked her name to see endless search results. (She’s very well known within the writing/editing/blogging community in Philadelphia, so there’s decades worth of stuff about her).
I desperately hoped she’s alive.
Not only is she alive.
She is doing SO well these days!!! She is happy and healthy and thriving in what seems like every aspect of life. She has her life on track, has close lifelong and new friends (some of the same ones she had back then! I did not see him though 😆 anyone who read my other post {linked below} will know who I’m talking about 🤣😂 I dedicated Ceelo Green’s song, “F*ck You” to him for stealing my woman 😭). She has a job she loves. She’s in the same line of work. She’s so successful. She is continuously evolving professionally & personally. She has fulfilling projects and goals she’s working on. She’s well loved in her workplace, community, circle of family & friends. I skimmed back through posts for a while, a few years worth, and she has been doing well for a while now. Again, my body is overcome in so much emotion that feels it can bring me to the ground but now in a good way. It’s so heartwarming to see how much progress she has made with her mental health and self esteem and how successful she still is, how she has been able to maintain her career even with severe mental health issues and debilitating recurring headaches.
She is still so loving and compassionate, still the same girl I knew and loved so many years ago. She has that same smile, and that same heart of pure gold. She posts the exact same photography of hers as years ago, pictures of the rain and Fall leaves. She still loves all the same stuff, humans, animals, books, writing, intellectual conversations. She has all the same views as before. She still lives in and loves Philadelphia, like me! We’re still the same!!
She has her same Instagram account with all the old photos I remember! I saw some of the ones that triggered me back then. Now they just stirred a slight wistful, nostalgic feeling, nothing intense.
And omg!! She is as beautiful as ever. I was so curious about what she looks like today. She’s 55 years old and doesn’t look a day older than she did when I last saw her pictures 7+ years ago. Omg, she’s STUNNING!! She looks exactly the same. Like she doesn’t age! Only thing that changed physically is she is rocking some gorgeous grey hair that suits her perfectly. She still has the same wavy brown, shoulder length hair I remember but now significantly grey (and just as beautiful!) She has the biggest smile. I am so moved and overwhelmed and inspired by her beauty exactly as I was then, but unlike all those years ago, it doesn’t make me want her. It just makes me smile. I could stare at her all day long, day after day, and never get tired of it.
She does still have depressive episodes here & there, but not almost chronic like before and has better self esteem and a great support system of friends and family and colleagues. I’m beaming as I write this. This is as great as I have ever seen her! I couldn’t be happier if it was myself!
Words cannot express the joy I am overwhelmed in, seeing her doing so well. Her smile is so big. Her eyes have a spark in them. She looks so healthy.
And seeing her current pictures, reading her recent blog posts, seeing her in pictures with close friends, even ones she knew back when I knew her, does not hurt me in any way! No old emotions came flooding back. Or almost none. There was a brief sense of nostalgia surging through me looking at some of her recent pictures, seeing her face, the one I knew so well all those years ago. There was also a hint of longing, but I realized it was just reliving memories of old emotions, not a current longing. Nothing came back to haunt me or drown me.
I was afraid it could. But my fear that she may not be alive or may be suffering regularly of the depression was worse than the fear that I may crumble at the fact that I cannot have her.
There is one thing, her talking about her lifelong depression and me completely understanding so intimately in a way that most couldn’t possibly because most never have depression lifelong like we do. Many people experience depression, but usually an episode or as a response to a current difficult situation. We have recurring lifelong depression that has sometimes been almost chronic and sometimes like not having depression at all. I experience a deep close connection to her through this. I just know. This briefly provoked me to wish we could be friends even now. Our experience with depression is so much a part of us that it can’t be separated. I wouldn’t be the me that I am without it. It finds its way into many casual conversations even with strangers. We have depressed days and not depressed days because of how frequent it can be. On any given morning we can wake up depressed out of nowhere or feel it creeping on slowly for no reason or triggered by something. This is something most people wouldn’t truly understand.This is a reason I have always felt a deep connection to Joan Rivers who also lived a life of s*icidal depression.
I will admit there’s one recent post of her and a group of her girls where she wrote something like “best friends for 30+ years, some people are meant to be in your life forever” where I felt a brief surge of that feeling all over again that I experienced years ago, that insecure feeling like why does she love them and not me, what made her reject me, I would have been so happy just to be an acquaintance of hers. Why them but not me? What do they have that I don’t? What made her choose to have them as friends and maintain those relationships for decades but not choose me? Why were they meant to be in her life forever but not me?I confess, I felt rejected all over again. It felt like she slapped me in the face with that post. An automatic, uncontrollable thought or feeling ran through me. What am I lacking that makes me not good enough? If I was in a fragile state of mind, as I sometimes am when my depression is flaring, if I was still so attached to her, this could have pushed me over some edge. But I wasn’t in a fragile state, and I’m not attached to her any longer.
I realized it was just some egoistic thing, me being self important, and was able to let it go almost as quickly as it came, and look at the much more important thing, the only thing that matters, she is happy, healthy, loved, has people to love. It does not matter why she rejected & ghosted me. It doesn’t matter why she doesn’t love me but loves so many others. It’s not about me.
This is the best gift to me, I can’t even put it into words how so happy I am for her. It’s similar to that feeling I express in my other post about her, that joyful feeling years ago where it’s like walking on air, skipping along the streets, frolicking about, wanting to sing & dance. But now it’s not because I’m hoping she’ll ever be mine, it’s a completely detached kind of joy that is only for her, about her living her best life.
If there’s one thing I could say to her it’s I love you, I love you, I love you my sweet, but in a detached way, a way that is only selfless, no expectations, no coveting. I want nothing but the best for you, nothing but happiness and love. And I no longer yearn to be the source of that happiness & love.
She still posts regularly just like years ago. I’m not going to make a habit of looking at her social media account and blog. We’re just not going to be a part of each other’s lives even though it’s what I so desperately wanted for so many years. Our lives briefly crossed, touched, and that forever changed and marked me. And that is enough.
This once is enough for me. It’s all I needed. Now I can truly put it to rest. I found my closure. (I will continue to write dark love poetry inspired by her though just because I love dark love poetry, and real experiences make for the best poetry lol)
I am also thankful that this experience shows me how healed and mentally ok I am, myself. There was a day it just k!lled me, triggered depression, even s*icidal thoughts in me, triggered insecurity in me, feelings like I’m not good enough for her or anyone, to see pictures of her and posts by her knowing she rejected me and not knowing why. There was a day her beauty was so tantalizing to me I couldn’t live without it. I couldn’t live with the pain of knowing someone so beautiful exists and will never be mine. Now her beauty is still just as mindblowing, but I can just bask in it and move along.
I was also mortified, humiliated about the sappy, clingy messages I sent her and then being rejected. I’m still embarrassed today. I was concerned that seeing her again, even if just online, would trigger me to be humiliated all over again to where it was interfering with life. I spilled my heart & soul, my guts to her all those years ago and so deeply regretted it because I would have been happy enough just being social media friends, but she unfriended me because of my messages, and also regretted it because of the embarrassment that plagued me. I wondered if she showed anyone my messages to her and if they judged me. I was afraid that would come back. But that did not happen!
I am so glad I looked her up. 😁
And oh yes, I mentioned in that last December post that I can’t believe I forgot the color of her eyes. I zoomed in on one of her recent pictures 😆 They’re dark, they look brown. It’s a bit hard to tell. I was afraid I would slip when I was zooming in and like one of her pictures. That’s all I need, I would seriously just die. I can imagine her thinking “Oh, her again.” Or “is she going to come back every decade?” 🤣😂
I was also afraid I would see a screencapture of my messages I wrote years ago. Like if she shared any parts of them to comment (she wouldn’t post my name or ridicule me, she’s not like that, but she may just to critique or share her thoughts on them, I’m still embarrassed and slightly more than I have been the last ten years now that I been thinking of her more lol).
Would I love to have her as my friend? Yes!! But I am completely ok loving her at a distance and accepting she was never going to be mine. I can’t say I’m 100% over it or healed, it may be one of those things that leaves a light scar forever, but a scar that is completely ok and just part of who we are.
I will probably always wonder, though the question doesn’t plague me like it did back then, why she rejected me to the point of ghosting/unfriending instead of ignoring my messages but staying social media friends. I understand not wanting to respond, maybe she felt awkward telling me she’s not interested in me. I understand if she did not want a close relationship with me. Not everyone is emotionally attracted to everyone in a way that makes them want that level of closeness with someone. Not everyone wants to be personal, active friends with everyone even in a way that isn’t close. There are people I like but am not interested in being friends with them but wouldn’t mind having them as online friends and definitely people I like but not in a way I want to be super close, emotionally. But to this day I do wonder why she did not even like me seeing as how so very similar we always were. And she had no problem with me in the first place. She never showed much interest in me, but she kept me around. Until the love confession. I never explicitly asked her to be anything to me. I came to the conclusion years ago that I must have come on too strongly, we were barely even acquaintances, she never even showed the slightest interest in me, never initiated communication with me, and I’m gushing all over the place about how much I love & have always loved her, how great we could be together, and sharing my entire life story in paragraphs & paragraphs. Lol Maybe it was too much, maybe she was creeped out. Who knows? And it’s mostly to the point where I can even say who cares. But I probably always will wonder why, maybe even wonder with a pang.
Just another random pic of me lol I like to add a few photos to my posts ♥️ This sweater is SO comfy & warm & soft, I love it!! The leggings are too, they have fake fur inside them.
I don’t currently have close friends. And that brings me so much pain & loneliness off & on. I am happy I have a group I occasionally meet up with and have fun with hanging out. But I haven’t made any deep connections yet since my college friends and me drifted apart (their choice, not mine) some years ago. It’s important to have deep friendship (for the average person, some don’t need it), especially with depression. I know the pain of that lack, so I’m so glad that she has that.
I am just so happy!! I am so happy that she is so great and surrounded by so much love and is fulfilled in life. I couldn’t ask for a better gift to me today.
Not only am I happy for her, it gives me hope for others in a dark place. What an inspiration! To see how she was able to turn her whole life around.
And omg, she’s so lovely!! ♥️♥️♥️ I’m so happy I got to see what she looks like now. So intoxicating. Gave me a big energy boost. Dopamine, adrenaline, serotonin or whatever lol
She looks similar to Tina Fey (people have always told her this, and I do see the resemblance). She has the sexy librarian, smart girl look. She still wears the same glasses that I have always thought she looked so adorable in!
Tina Fey ♥️Tina Fey
Just for some eye candy and an idea of what she looks like, here’s Tina Fey lol
Here is my post this current post is referring to. It’s super long!!
This is what I’m doing!! Likely in October this year!! They’re looking for my match now somewhere in the country (there are multiple matches). My dna is entered into the kidney registry database, then hospitals around the country with a patient who is a match for me will receive the notification, and one of the hospitals will accept my kidney based on the date I choose and other factors! My kidney will be removed here in Philadelphia at Penn Transplant Institute and sent to its new home on an airplane! 🫘💚 It will likely give someone 20(+) more years of health & life.
In 2019, there were 387 altruistic (NDD) kidney donors in the US & 184 in 2014. It’s becoming more common! I first heard of it being a thing when I was a 20 something year old girl. At one point only friends & family could legally donate, and people were trying to get that changed. When it became legal, I read a story about a man who donated one of his healthy kidneys to a complete stranger in need, not even a stranger he encountered and wanted to help personally, but a stranger he never met or saw and knew nothing at all about and maybe never would, the person next on the transplant wait list who he matched with. I *knew* that’s something I would do and felt in my bones it would someday be me giving my kidney to a random stranger. Now all these years later, here I finally am!!
I’m so thankful & happy & honored that I have been chosen by the PENN Transplant team to be one this year! What a rare and beautiful thing to be part of, so life affirming and universal loving. 💚💚💚💙💙💙
