Some final thoughts, as I go into week 8 of recovery

Now that I'm back at work I've had several folks ask me about my little kidney adventure.  I have therefore had time to work up a standard response, which is typically to shrug off my involvement and redirect to how Logan is doing.  Here are some things that I don't say and maybe should:

• Modern medicine is truly amazing and we all need to give a shout out to science, please. 
• The first week of recovery was absolute hell, more so than I ever imagined.  I know that it's different for everyone, but in my case it was absolute hell.  The rest of the recovery was actually not too bad at all, except for that afternoon where I had a tickle in my throat and it hurt so much to cough that I had to lie on the carpet in a fetal position for 15 minutes.
• People are really, really nice and generous by nature.
• Hospitals are really quiet and creepy over a holiday weekend.  Think about that scene in The Walking Dead when the guy wakes up from his coma.  It's kind of like that, minus the zombies.
• It's an absolute travesty that there is no real financial assistance for donors.  We estimate that between travel, hotel, and lost wages we are down well over $5000.  We are lucky to be in a position to have planned for that financial hit, but what about others that would not have been able to afford it?  It's quite telling when the kidney donation pamphlets talk about your financial assistance options in terms of friends holding a benefit to raise money.  Unacceptable and my goal for this year is to write some people about it. 
• Thank goodness for health care reform and the fact that in the future insurers can't give me trouble about having one kidney being a "pre-existing condition" (seriously, it's happened to others).
• I don't regret a moment of this adventure.  I feel lucky to have been in a position to be able to do it.  
• Many, many people could put themselves in a position to be a donor, especially if you do it for someone local.  Maybe there is a kid out there that could use your kidney?  Just sayin'.

I'm feeling pretty much 100%, and Logan is doing great, eating up a storm (except for meat...yay,  vegetarian kidney!)