A Life Altering Experience

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October 2023, Donation Day. My oldest daughter Alice was my Highly exceptional “mom tender.” She kept me laughing and simultaneously kept me from falling over in the airport. Thank you Alice.

I have been contemplating for a while how to share about my process of donating stem cells through “Be the Match” in such a way that it will be an avenue not only to inspire others to consider donating, but also to share the impact it has had on me as I continue to grow my understanding of the many ways we can expand ourselves through varying forms of relationship. I wrote the letter below to understand my own process and though it is in letter form, it is written ultimately for my own heart rather than the man who received my stem cells. Hopefully, it will inspire others to contemplate the act of donation as a service not only to the life of another, but ultimately to remind ourselves of our enduring connection to each other, even in the most difficult circumstances. We have been given such an exquisite opportunity to expand our understanding of the reciprocal healing of love. Follow the links to learn more about joining the “Be the Match” registry. Thank you for stepping into my crazy and beautiful world for a moment. My life continues to be an adventure that both cracks me up and moves me deeply. It is such an honor to be on the journey with you in the realm of relationship and growth.

October 2023

To the stranger who will inherit my allergies, my blood type, and maybe even my proclivities,

You will become gluten-intolerant, O-positive, and possibly have my curly untamed hair. You could even slowly become a curious-scattered-relentless seeker,  who is unapologetically sensual, and yearns incessantly for deep connection. Or is that if you get my heart? What you may never understand as your blood melds with my blood is that my heart is more vulnerable and tender in this anonymous transaction than it has been in any romantic relationship for quite some time. To merge in such a full-bodied-soft-way, to give all of me, even the parts I don’t understand, without gauging if you want to receive all of me is so liberating. I want to say to you, “You’ve got this.” Encourage you. Build you up, but the reality is, it doesn’t matter what I say. Being me is enough. More importantly, being me is not too much. Miraculously this is what all of the tests reveal. I imagine that as you traverse territory I can’t even begin to understand, that as you fight for your life, you may not know what you have given me.

To be received fully is a gift that is immeasurable. It is not how things go in so many relationships. As I bend my body in your direction, physically ache, and shift precariously and beautifully between the gentle miracle and magical science of restoration through donation and transplant, I will metabolize an experience of love. What I imagine, is that you will receive and live fully with parts of me all hemmed inside of you. And I will become more of myself because of you.

You should know that this three-month process of cheek swabs, blood draws, medical questionnaires, and detailed evaluations didn’t start when I gave my DNA to the “Be the Match” registry over twenty-five years ago. It began when I lived past nine and my oldest sister didn’t live past eleven. It started when my parents waited with my sister in pre-op for a liver donation that would never come. It started when we went from a family of five to four and tried to make footprints for her with every part of our lives past hers.

Now, as I sit for six hours with an IV in one arm pumping my blood through a machine that makes a rhythmic sound of shush and thrum, like a heartbeat in a jukebox, I imagine that you and your loved ones have wondered if this donation will truly happen. This masterful machine between us is a precise process called apheresis which at its linguistic root means “the loss of sound or sounds from the beginning of a word.” Like over from lover, or care from scare. Medically apheresis is this boxy high-tech machine that pumps blood cyclically through its man-made veins and separates enough stem cells to change the course of both of our lives. Shifting the word alive for me, to live, for you.

For me, this experience has been so much more than five days of injections, much more than a daily process of balancing my discomfort with your struggle to live. It has been much more than the one thousand, nine hundred and thirty-one miles I traveled for the procedure and the four thousand nine hundred and ninety-nine miles between my donation and your transplant. This has been a monumental recollection of inseparability, of giving without gripping, of bridging my nine-year-old loss with an unexpected experience that heals me too. Even though I may never get to meet you, it is exquisitely humbling that we get to live another year together.

Anonymously Yours

Follow the link to learn how you can give to the Be The Match Registry. There are many ways to give.

BeTheMatch.org

In memory of Kelly Noel

December 10, 1965 ~ October 29th, 1977