{"id":557,"date":"2019-11-11T12:55:15","date_gmt":"2019-11-11T17:55:15","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.salticid.com\/marathon\/?p=557"},"modified":"2020-12-29T12:59:46","modified_gmt":"2020-12-29T17:59:46","slug":"first-steps-on-the-journey","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.salticid.com\/marathon\/2019\/11\/first-steps-on-the-journey\/","title":{"rendered":"First steps on the journey"},"content":{"rendered":"

Written after talking to Jonathan at length, in preparation for asking my primary care physical about kidney donation<\/em><\/p>\n

I\u2019ve been aware of kidney donation for a long time but didn\u2019t start really seriously thinking about it until reading\u00a0Dylan Matthew\u2019s story<\/a>. Donating whatever can be used after my death always seemed like a no-brainer. I was a timid child, afraid of pain but wanting to be brave, and I admired my dad\u2019s regular blood donation so much. I got physically braver as I aged and started donating blood myself in the 90s – I\u2019m nearing 10 gallons by now! In 2008 I volunteered with a young man who told me his story of donating bone marrow, which he described as one of the highlights of his life. I researched it and signed up with\u00a0Be the Match<\/a>, but I\u2019ve never been called.<\/p>\n

I remember thinking \u201coh, I could never do that\u201d about kidney donation when I first heard about it. But so much has changed about the donation process, and I\u2019ve also undergone multiple similar surgeries so it\u2019s less scary to me (I had 3 operations for endometriosis, 2 full incisions and one laparoscopic).<\/p>\n