9/19/25 –
I ended up getting a smart watch to help track health stuff. That came on Wednesday so I started using that for the first time today.
Weight loss going well after about 3 weeks lost about 7-8 lbs and 4 inches off waist circumference.
Got a call Friday morning the day of our all troop Campout. Transplant nurse Amy called and said the 24 hour blood pressure tests all looked good and that based on my weight loss direction the doctors are wanting to ask about doing an exchange instead of direct donation to Chad.
Basically there is another donor – recipient who is a match. But because I’m O+, my kidney could go to this other person.
I had already rearranged my schedule to skip my leader responsibilities for the Middle School Ministry Skate o Rama event to go have dinner with Chad in Lincoln and let him know he’s got a living donor- me and that we can start planning things out together with schedules, etc. All indications from the transplant team were that I’m good to go. So this Sunday I made up my mind to tell Chad. I got a very interesting update Friday morning from Nurse Amy. Her inflection was kind of like, I hope you’re sitting down for this. She talked about the matching option as well as the timeline for upcoming surgery. I indicated to Amy that I’m meeting with Chad Sunday and can go over all this information with him- not only for the Living Kidney Donor LKD update, but also about the exchange we can take part in.
The kicker – their surgery date was much sooner than expected. Bout one month- mid October! So yikes. That’s not much time to plan and will go super fast. My work schedule is not good right now. All the Data Centers are building new sites like crazy and our entire team is having trouble keeping up. It’s estimated I’ll be out solid for 2 weeks and about a month working from home. I could barely take a day off without getting completely buried and having high value calls I “needed” to be on- even during a recent family vacation. Maybe I’ll be able to handle phone calls and emails sooner to try and not sink as quickly. Actually, despite working 50-60 hours a week, I’m still falling behind. So, there may be some serious added stress, or I’m not sure how this’ll work in the end. But, along with having a safe and successful surgery, I’m relying on God’s hand to even lay my job responsibilities at His feet and trust that He will have my back for this as well.