A Red Letter Day!

Today is a day of prime significance! It has been exactly one year since my brother-in-law and I participated in a kidney transplant.

Gwen's Short List of Kidney Facts: (these are from the Kidney Foundation "Facing the Facts" brochure.)

• An estimated 1.9 million Canadians have chronic kidney disease.
• Each day, an average of 14 Canadians learn that their kidneys have failed.
• Untreated kidney failure results in death within days to weeks.
• As of December 2004, there were 4,054 Canadians on the waiting list for a transplant, and 2,872 of these were awaiting a kidney transplant.
• Of the 1,013 kidney transplants performed in 2004, 41% were from living donors.
• 59 children received a kidney transplant in 2004; 36 were from live donors.
• The estimated waiting list for a kidney transplant is 8-10 years.

Here are Ian and I, a couple days post-Op, on a very painful stroll around the hospital room. Note the inability to stand up straight! Thank God for morphine....

“To know even one life has breathed easier because you have lived, this is to have succeeded.” (Ralph Waldo Emerson)