That Time I (Hopefully) Gave Away A Kidney – Part 28 (Big Kidney Day! – Continuing To Try To See The Psychologist’s Point Of View)

September 10, 2014

pee jug inside a specimen bag
A pee jug in a specimen bag, because… why not?

Picking up from last time –

Continuing to play devil’s advocate to kind of, sort of, be on the side of the psychologist – the only way in which I could see that I actually would regret giving a kidney is of course if it affected my life in some kind of awful way.

If I gained a long-term health problem, or you know, died… sure, I could see her saying, “bet you regret that decision now!”

But, we make decisions all day every day – decisions that potentially could hurt us. Yes, I could conceivably have a complication with my kidney surgery. I also could die crossing the street. I could die running a marathon. I could die doing a lot of things!

Did you know that in my lifetime, I am 17 times more likely to die in a car crash than in my kidney surgery (assuming I ever freaking have it)? (Well, at least that’s what the internet says. Who knows if that statistic is correct? But I do know kidney.org says there’s a less than 1% chance of death! Less than 1%!)

We could die doing anything! So, what? Am I going to just sit in my apartment all day long and never go do anything at all – and then hope that I don’t die in here from a fire, or earthquake, or intruder, or drive by shooting bullet piercing through my window, or anything else that could still happen to you – even if you never leave your own home?

I don’t want to make the world sound so ridiculous and scary. I don’t actually worry about the threat of death on a daily basis the way I’m describing it here.

I’m just saying, when a medical procedure has been pretty much perfected, and the odds of bad things happening are so super crazy low, all you can do is pick the best surgeon/best hospital you can, and hope for the best.

(I mean, you could just not give a kidney. But I refuse that option, because to me the reward for someone who they get to be free again and live whatever kind of life they choose – that SO outweighs the risk for me that I just can’t imagine not wanting to take the risk…)

Getting back to the story, the psychologist basically isn’t listening to anything I have to say because she thinks I’m a child… (And fyi, I know people in their forties who are more of a child than I am – and I know you do too! So, age is not everything, my friends.)

She also brought up that I hadn’t had kids yet. I tried to explain that “yet” doesn’t need to be part of the sentence, because I am never having kids. At the time, my gynecologist and I had already decided on my permanent birth control option (even if the procedure didn’t get performed until the following month).

It’s funny how no matter what you tell people when you’re young – even if you say that you are having a procedure to make it so that you are physically incapable of having children… many, many people will not believe you!

So, that was basically beating my head up against a wall, since apparently the only medical professional who will believe me is my gynecologist (and I LOVE her for that).

The psychologist says, “If you were a 50-year-old woman who’d already had her family and now wanted to give back, I’d approve you right now. No problems… Usually people don’t feel the need to give back to society until they’re older.”

Here’s a question, if my age is such a humongous problem, why did you let me go through the testing? If I have to be 50, why don’t you just make a rule that I need to be 50?

As far as that whole when we should feel the need to give back to society… Well, let’s talk about that next time.

I'd love to hear from you! So whaddya say?