adventures in nephrology / about that kidney donation….

people say they want to know
I continue to be amazed and gratified by the number of people who have reached out to me after I went AWOL from Manhattan Loft Guy for the entire Fall. (Just today I had a long telephone conversation with a faithful MLG reader, but that will be for another post.)

People have expressed interest in reading about an interview of me and of Susan (my kidney’s present custodian) for a private school newsletter (our ‘connection’ through that private school will be explained there), so I will post the link below.

way back on September 4
I posted in the wee hours on the Friday before Labor Day, asking for prayers from those who pray, as I was about to go up to Columbia Presbyterian to donate a kidney. That post was the beginning of the story for MLG readers, the middle of the story for me, and the beginning of the (happy!) end of the story for Susan.

good news!
The good news is that Susan has been on a successful path that includes post-surgery recovery and jiggering of her anti-rejection medications, with a (long!) lifetime ahead of her. The only bad news I see is that "my" kidney will have to get used to Susan’s much more healthy lifestyle (has a donated kidney ever been rejected due to alcohol withdrawal??).

For me, the immediate post-op experience was about as good as it gets, even allowing for the Vicodin visions. As you will see in the article, I was on the subway and showed an apartment on the Thursday after the Friday surgery. But I needed to — and did — take it easy; more than I anticipated, frankly. I dropped off the face of the Internet after a couple of weeks because I could not count on having the energy and ability to concentrate as much as I needed to in order to service clients and the blog.

At some point, when I had the time and energy I started going to the gym instead of blogging. Throughout, I had less mental energy and concentration than it took to sit with a laptop at 11 PM and find interesting closed loft sales.

I did not have in mind when I took the unannounced sabbatical how long I would be gone, and it went on longer than I expected. Partly because "next week" is the seduction that precedes "tomorrow", which is still a long way from "doing it".  Partly because I was hoping to come back with some sort of bang, some grand post wrapping up X weeks of market activity and X weeks of blog absence. Sigh.

So that’s the story (and I am sticking to it), with all sorts of Real Life Info on page 8 (of 10) of the January 2010 edition of FieldNotes, from the Ethical Culture Fieldston School (sorry for all the scrolling required).

2 more things
In the future, I will try to post some announcement when I intend to be ‘away’ from Manhattan Loft Guy for more than a few days.

Contact me if you are interested in live kidney donation. But anyone can donate a kidney once they no longer need it.  (You won’t need them while dead, and they make lousy souvenirs!) This is from my September 4 post:

The New York Donor Network website is http://donatelifeny.org/, where you can get information about donating organs after you don’t need them. There’s a form you can fill out, print and mail that enrolls you in the donor program, which you can access here. The main site has many, many links if you want further information about organ transplants.

Do. It. Now.

© Sandy Mattingly 2010