thankful

Tonight, I sit here exhausted, relieved, and more than anything...thankful. Thankful for the gift my sister was able to give to my father. You see, today, my sister "Seester" give my father a kidney and the gift of life renewed.

The Bible says "Greater love has no one than this, that he lay down his life for his friends." - John 15:13. But today my sister showed great love, amazing love. Thank you God for the gift of my sister. Bless her all the days of her life.

So how was today? Long, emotionally draining and wonderful. I arrived at the hospital a little after 5 am and spent some time visiting with dear seester. Then I went and visited with my father. They got us down to the OR right off the bat, but after there, we spent a lot of time waiting. They rolled both daddy and seester down to pre-op right around 6 am. Seester's surgery was to begin at 7:15 but didn't get started until closer to 8:30. We had been told that they would move daddy into surgery an hour or so after seester's surgery had begun. But at 10:00, they called and said they were having a more difficult time removing the kidney so it would be little longer. Fortunately they had given daddy some "I don't care" meds and he napped while his friend and I wondered if we would ever get to eat breakfast. When he woke from his "I don't care" nap, he fully proceeded to entertain us in his "I don't care" loopiness.

At 10:30, the medical team said "Let's go" and we went. Officially his surgery began a few minutes after 11 am. While daddy's surgery went without hiccups, seester's took a lot longer than we had anticipated and we were getting quite a bit concerned. A 1-1/2 hour surgery had morphed to an over 5 hour journey. Thankfully, it was nothing major and she returned to her room to recoup by late afternoon.

Seester had just been moved to her room when we received notice that daddy was in recovery. I can not really explain how I felt in that moment. I literally felt a weight lift off of me the moment the doctor told that he had done well and the kidney was working fantastically. What a great moment!

We figured that we would see daddy shortly, but that did not happen. Just like every other thing today, our time would drag on out. A little before 6 pm (marking our 12th hour in the waiting room), I went to the patient information desk and worked some magic with the staff. Somehow, I convinced them to allow the 6 of us in groups of 3 to see daddy so we could all go home and get some rest. Thank you, Jesus, you knew we were weary.

When I last saw them, they both were hungry and ready for some real food. I will take that as a good sign. :D