Jolinda, Sorry for the delay in response. I had a couple of days where I was extremely weak but thankfully I feel much better. How precious to have that shared gift with your friend, Dawn. I do hope to someday meet the person I who now has my kidney. I wonder about and pray for the person everyday. I also hope to meet the person I started this journey for someday. I heard about a person in my Bible study that had a half sister that she had met once that was in need of a second kidney transplant. Her first didn't work. She has young children and I began praying. It quickly began clear that I was supposed to step up. I filled out paperwork and waited quite awhile before I was contacted. Once I was contacted I had a few weeks of testing and appointments. I was not a match for the person I had named but I found out I could start a chain and potentially help more people by giving my kidney in a paired chain. I agreed to give my kidney to someone with the idea of the person I named being moved to the top of a nation wide pool that includes living donors. She has about 1% of finding the right match. I could wait until she found a match or I could give in advance. I decided to give in advance. My information went out on the National list and within a few hours my nurse was calling that a match had been made and a date was set. My team at Mayo was amazing and with each conversation they would always ask if I had any questions and I always ask. Is there any information you can give me about my recipient 😊 Someday if the recipient wants to know about me we will hopefully meet. Until then the paired chain is in effect and someday it will be exciting to hear how many people received kidneys in this chain to reach my first named recipient (whom I also hope to meet). So, that's my story of donation. Yesterday and today have been great days and I'm healing well.

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