My Kidney Finally Came!

I know I haven't been around much lately --- well, we got some good news on January 23. Here's the details of how it all started:

My husband Ken and I were fast asleep in the wee hours of Wednesday, January 23. I was having a vivid dream about being slowly and relentlessly pursued by a tiger through a house. The tiger had just come through the door I was hiding behind and was sniffing at me. I was trying to decide whether to be terrified. Like Aslan, the tiger was not safe. But I wasn’t sure if he was good.

I was jolted out of this dream by an urgent pounding on my front door. A check of the clock showed it was about 2 a.m. A glance out the window showed a Royal Oak Police car parked on the street outside my house. “What the …?” I thought as I groggily struggled into a robe and down the stairs.

“Mrs. Miller?”

“No, no it’s Millinger.”

“Yes, that’s right. Your doctors have been trying to call you. They have a kidney for you over at Beaumont.” And the officer gave me a scrawled note with the doctor’s name and phone numbers.

Let me explain that some time ago, in an effort to save money on our telecommunications bills, I switched our land line to a cell phone. And I don’t sleep with a phone beside the bed. So I never heard any of our three phones ringing repeatedly. It’s a good thing the doctors are persistent.

I told Ken the news and he was stunned. We both thought we were dreaming. But when I talked to the doctor, he verified that indeed they did have a kidney for me. He instructed me to get a few things together and head over to the hospital at 6 a.m. for admission.

Believe me, there was no sleeping at the Millinger household between 2 a.m. and 5 a.m. Sure we got back into bed and tried to rest, but there was no sleeping. Excitement, joy, fear all conspired against it.

We drove through the cold darkness, went through registration and walked up to a room on the 5th floor. Here we basically waited as we saw the doctors and prepped for the surgery. I had blood drawn, an EKG and a chest X-ray. I showered with some special soap and put on a clean gown.

Ken made phone calls to everyone who needed to know. His niece called out of the blue just because she felt a burden that he might need something. We prayed with one of the hospital chaplains and we prayed with my former pastor. So many people had been praying about this for so long, how could I be afraid? God’s presence was everywhere.

The surgery went well, I was sitting up in a chair the next day and home after five days. It's been about seven weeks now and the kidney is working well. My creatinine is settling in at around 0.9. I guess I have no excuses not to return to work in another four or five weeks. This has been so life-changing and I am so grateful.