The kindness of strangers

Since we published the blog we have had the most lovely reaction and offers of support and help from so many people and it is genuinely touching (which is hard for someone as cynical as me to admit). It is such an odd experience to be going through. The surgeon at the hospital the other day asked me what I would like to do with my kidney once they have removed it if, for some reason, they are unable to plumb it into Tara. Unfortunately fry it up and serve it with a good strong Merlot was not on the list of options. The four options were 1) Give it to someone else 2) donate it to kidney research 3) have it put back in 4) throw it in the bin. I must admit I gave the surgeon a bit of a funny look. Is this really a question - I mean I do understand that the hospital have to obtain my permission to do anything with my kidney and if there was a problem I wouldn't be able to give permission at the time on account of being anaesthetised so they must obtain it in advance, but three of those options just don't feel like they should even be there for people to chose.

So, I am donating a kidney specifically to Tara, but if for some reason they were unable to give it to her (which is very unlikely) then of course I would want it to go to someone else who would need it. If they were to put it back into me they would have to reattach it in my groin and for me that would serve as a reminder that I attempted to do something selfless once but didn't quite manage it. Donating it to research would be great if anything could be gleaned from my removed kidney that can't already be from the tests they have done on it while it is still inside me so that would be pointless (which the surgeon did point out) and finally throw it in the bin. Throw it in the fecking bin?! Are you kidding me? An operation. A surgeon carefully removes something successfully that could save someone's life and because I could potentially have an attack of the selfish cows and decide that if it couldn't go to Tara it couldn't go to anyone it would just get thrown away. Utterly ridiculous. It seemed that in the same week I learned how kind people could be with offers of vegetarian casseroles; and walking the hounds for us; and sending us kindness and well wishes in messages and emails - I also learned how utterly selfish and daft people can be when they almost do a good thing and then throw it away - literally.