My Donor Family

So, I am kind of an emotional mess right now.  I know I have not written in a long time, but that is a good thing.  I have had minimal issues and my lungs are doing so well.  Still taking a ton of medications, still doing everything I can with doctor appointments and staying away from germs, etc and most importantly, still enjoying every moment of this extension on my life.

Today, I received a beautiful letter from my donor family.  They lost a precious mother and wife and still reached out to me to see how I was doing.  I have been crying my little eyeballs out for about 45 minutes now.  😦  I did choose to write them back and this is what I wrote:

Dear Donor Family,

I received your letter this morning, and I cannot even express to you in words the gratitude and emotion in my heart as I write you now.  Let me first say how unbelievably sorry I am for the tragic loss of your loved one.  I am so sorry that you lost such an amazing wife and mother, and I feel beyond grateful that in your grief, you still were so selfless to offer her organs to save my life.

I am also a wife and mother.  I was 28 years old dying of a debilitating lung disease.  I had been living on 24 hour oxygen pretty much homebound, on the lung transplant list and doing my best to take care of my 3 and 5 year old children and my husband of 9 years.  I ended up being rushed to the ICU due to respiratory failure on  May 5th of 2011 and stayed there knowing that without a set of lungs to save my life, I would never go home to see my babies again.  This was the most devastating time of my entire life, and I had several times when we thought lungs were available for me, but they fell through.  Weeks and weeks in the hospital went by and I was feeling myself just get worse and worse.  I remember feeling so desolate and broken hearted the night before I received word of these organs having come available.  I felt like I had come to the end of what I could handle, and I prayed more that night before than I ever had b/c I didn’t know if I had the strength to keep fighting.  When word came the next morning, it was an absolute miracle and the day happened like it was a dream.  I received these two beautiful lungs and have not looked back since.  A few months later, I was home in time to get my son into kindergarten.  And outside of wearing a mask to protect me from germs, I was just a normal mom taking her son somewhere.  That feeling was the best feeling in the entire world.  I got to walk him into school every day after that.  And I was able to walk up and down my steps in my home, play games with my children, tuck my children in bed at night, go places with my family and just enjoy life.  I am now able to be a wife to my husband who had the weight of the world on his shoulders before that.  You saved his life as well.

I always say that my favorite saying in life is: “Life is not measured by the number of breaths we take, but by the number of moments that take our breath away.”  I mean that whole heartedly, and I think of it every day.  I have that saying plastered up in my home in several places.  I don’t know if I have 1 year or 5 years or more with these lungs, but I will tell you that it is a gift like none other that I have ever received.  Without your generous gift, my husband would be alone and my children would not have their mother.  I think of you and your family on a daily basis.   And EVERY time that I step out of my house without tubes and machines and inhalers, I thank God for that moment.  I can’t believe that after 18 months now, I still feel that overwhelming sense of gratitude every time I get to pick up my kids or go to a park or clean my house.  Everything is such a gift, and every small thing that I get to do means the world to me.  And I will never forget you or your wife and mother.  Without her and your family’s selfless offering, nothing would be possible here for my family.

I want you to know that if you are interested, you may respond back and I would love to offer you my blog web address.  I have documented every moment of my process prior to getting lungs and after.  I try to keep it updated with my progress and talk about my blessings.

I can’t quite find the words to close this letter, but know that I am doing so well, and I will never forget you as long as these lungs carry me.

Blessings to you all.