Back in Maryland- A Few Afterthoughts

Well, I made it back to maryland this morning. There were just a few things I forgot to mention in my last long post, that I wanted to mention. Yesterday happened to also be the exact 4 month mark after my transplant. 09/08/09-01/08/10. One can tell that life has resumed to a more normal level when that was not the focus of my post. I remember feeling such a sense of accomplishment and success reaching the 1 month mark, 8 week mark, etc. I definitely did not forget the day, but it is not the focus any longer. I feel as though, despite the recent setbacks, that the mere length of time is not what is most important to me in this process. Although it does feel nice...

I finally feel ready to reach out to my donor family and let them know how I feel about their gift of organ donation and how I am doing. I will start to craft a letter to them. Not exactly sure what approach to take, but it will come to me. I wanted my health, medications, and outcome to stabilize a bit and I also wanted to physically feel strong or stronger before writing such an important letter. This will help me say things the way I want to say them without rushing out some steroid induced emotional letter that does not symbolize what I want to say.

The way the process works is as follows: Either the donor or recipient can write a letter at any time. It is handed over to a third-party (I forget the name, but it might have something to do with UNOS) through your coordinator, they read the letter and ensure total anonymity before forwarding it on to the other party. This protects peoples privacy etc. However, if a level of correspondence and trust develops the donor family and recipient can mutually agree to end the privacy and communicate directly and even meet. In case anyone was interested..

Anyway, that is about it for now.

-Mitch