We're off to Texas!

This I recall to my mind,
therefore I have hope.
The Lord's lovingkindnesses never cease,
For His compassions never fail.
They are new every morning;
Great is Your faithfulness.

Lamentations 3:21-23

Both Tom and my dear friend, Anje, recently reminded me of this scripture. The Lord indeed continues to show His faithfulness to our family!

We have been unable to find a compatible living donor for Samuel despite the many wonderful, generous people who have stepped forward to offer over the last 3 years. (May God bless each and every one of you!) Additionally, Samuel’s name has never even once come up on the deceased donor list. He just has too many antibodies against very common antigens. That has made him incompatible with 99% of the population.

Back in March of this year, in hopes of finding a compatible donor, Samuel was listed with the National Kidney Registry. This fairly new organization connects pairs of donors and recipients in a type of chain called a paired exchange. The wonderful woman who was willing to donate on Samuel’s behalf was Linda Paroline. Samuel and Linda were the first donor/recipient pair from Fletcher Allen to be registered with the NKR.

The transplant team continued to encourage us to find additional donors to list with Samuel as each donor, with their unique genetic profile, could lead to a different possible chain.

In June, Samuel’s 21-year old sister, Hannah, passed all her screening and was listed as a second possible donor for Samuel with the NKR. I also want to make special mention of Grace, Samuel’s 19-year old sister, who was one of the first to offer to donate a kidney on Samuel’s behalf. Unfortunately, Grace was disqualified as a donor. Thank you, Grace! We love you!

On Friday last week, after 3 long years of waiting, we got a phone call from our transplant coordinator saying there might be a paired exchange that could include Samuel and Hannah as his designated donor. We were told that the target date for the transplant was around the second week of November and that this chain could include as many as 16 pairs of donors and recipients. That would be 32 surgeries to orchestrate! It was still very early in the planning and there were many details to work out.

On Monday, Samuel and Hannah both had blood drawn and sent away for cross matching with their respective donor and recipient. We were told that Hannah was being asked to travel to Texas to donate to her recipient in San Antonio. Hannah was willing, and we made the difficult decision that I would travel with Hannah and Tom would stay here with Samuel for his transplant. We were asked not to share any details as plans were still too tentative.

On Wednesday, we got word that the cross-matches for both Samuel and Hannah were negative. In this case, negative is a very good thing! We were also told that the timing and logistics of the surgeries would make it impossible for a kidney to be shipped to Samuel in Vermont. If we wanted to participate in the paired exchange, both Hannah and Samuel would have to travel to Texas. This was a bit of a shock! But we are always up for a new challenge, especially if it means that Samuel can get a transplant, so we began to wrap our heads around the idea.

Today we were told that the transplant team in Texas needs to see Samuel and Hannah on Monday (or Tuesday at the latest) for further screening and evaluation. That is 3 days from now! Okay, deep breath, we can do this! Lots of scrambling, lots of phone calls, and we are scheduled to fly out tomorrow at 5:30 p.m. We’ll have Sunday to relax and then we’ll report bright and early at 7:00 a.m. to the clinic at the Texas Transplant Institute in San Antonio. They claim to be “the nation’s largest and most experienced living donor kidney transplant program.” Sounds like a good place to be! They will arrange for Samuel to dialyze on Monday after a series of appointments for him and Hannah. We will fly back home on Tuesday afternoon.

If everything goes well for Samuel and Hannah (and all the other pairs), we'll be flying back down to San Antonio sometime before the transplants which are scheduled to take place over a 3-day period starting on November 11th.

So yeehaw, we’re off to Texas!! Just another example of the Lord's lovingkindnesses! Just another episode of the Smith Family Kidney Adventure!