Kelli Rohrig

Unknown to me, my long time friend was suffering from kidney disease.  It was only after she was on the path to dialysis and was searching for a donor did I realize how sick she was.  She always hid it well; never complaining, never showing signs of weakness.  I asked her about my helping and possibly donating, but she said she had it covered, both her husband and best friend were in the process of testing for donation.  

It turns out that my friend's husband has a liver issue and their friend has a clotting problem.  They were both devastated, not only could they not donate but they both learned of long term personal health issues.  I decided I'd give it a go and try for the voucher program for my friend.  My husband wasn't overly happy with my decision, I struggled for years with a tick borne illness and a severe mold poisoning from living in a house with black mold.  But, he knows that I'm stubborn, so he did his best to go with the flow.  

As we all know, testing is a long process, so potential donation was never in our faces, just something we discussed on occasion when I had to give blood, do the pee test (I work outside, so I had some stellar covert ops collecting my urine for 24 hours), etc.  To my astonishment, I passed with pretty great results, so we started to prepare for my upcoming surgery.  

I was volunteering in Ukraine when we got the call that my friend got a last minute deceased kidney, so I was off the hook.  I could hear the stress and disappointment in my husband's voice when I told him that I intended to continue with the donation regardless.  I had been paired with a hard to match man who had been on dialysis for 13 hours a day for years. 

The rest, as they say, is history.  My husband has come around and occasionally speaks about donating his kidney.

I do not regret a single moment of the process.