Christmas Kidney

In June, our daughter-in-love, Kimberly, shared with us that she had been tested and was a match to donate a kidney to the daughter of some former colleagues. Maggie is twenty-two years old, and her health is deteriorating. She had grown up with Kimberly and Jeremy’s kids while both families were living in London.

No one in Maggie’s family was a match for her, so they were so excited about Kimberly’s gift to Maggie. Kimberly and Jeremy traveled to Seattle where Maggie’s family lives, and Kimberly went through a battery of tests and procedures required for kidney donors.

Kimberly received a report from the Seattle tests, and it indicated that she had a possible small tumor on her pancreas. However, it would be a couple of weeks before the transplant committee met to discuss her case. After their meeting, Kimberly was instructed to repeat PET scans and MRIs in Atlanta. Finally, after weeks of stressful waiting, Kimberly received a report confirming a malignant tumor on her pancreas, and, additionally, they discovered a small spot on her liver. The tumor is very small, and her three oncologists have since affirmed that if she had not been willing to give the kidney, then she would not have known that she had this cancer until many months and possibly years later.

Kimberly’s first reactions included a profound sadness that young Maggie would not get her kidney. One does not “get over” the devastating news of pancreatic cancer, but Kimberly is no ordinary person. She is always the bubbly friend-maker, conversation-starter, and go-to-person to confide in. Of course, she was upset with this dramatic development in her family, but all her extended family was so impressed with her calmness and her focusing on requests to pray for someone else to step forward to give a kidney to young Maggie.

Shelby, Kimberly and Jeremy’s oldest daughter, is a senior in college, and she, like her two sisters Darby and Emma, was walking alongside their mother during this difficult time. As Shelby was praying for her mother’s diagnosis and for another donor to step forward, she was convicted by God speaking to her in her prayers.  Shelby felt that God was saying to her that she should volunteer to be tested to be a donor of her kidney. Shelby, who is a deeply spiritual 22-year-old, only thought about being obedient to God.

Shelby is majoring in Forensic Investigation in college, and her desire is to do CSI work for a law enforcement agency. There are basically two paths to becoming a CSI agent. One is through serving as a law enforcement officer and the other as a civilian. If Shelby was going to give a kidney, then the door to working with a law enforcement agency would be closed as she could not pass the physical with only one kidney. That tough decision would be solved for her.

After Kimberly was unable to be a donor, Maggie’s mother turned to social media to help find another donor. Shelby was following her on Facebook, and she saw a link for interested people. The link was to the National Kidney Transplant Network, and without her parents’ knowledge, Shelby contacted them expressing an interest.

She was assigned a medical coordinator. After she decided where she would want to have surgery, the medical coordinator chose a mentor for Shelby. She is a young mother of one child, and she is expecting another. That allayed another issue that Shelby had thought about. She was concerned that the chances of having a baby might be decreased if she gave Maggie one of her kidneys.

The process of acceptance to be a donor was a roller coaster ride for Shelby. First of all, what are the chances of there being two acceptable donors in the same family who are unrelated to the recipient? The waiting for test results was stressful. “Will I be able to complete this journey or not?” was often the question that came to Shelby’s mind. But Shelby was persistent in communicating with God, and she knew that she had to keep going to the next step until God closed the door on this process. Through this process she was hoping that she would have a closer relationship with Maggie, and she knew that it would be a win situation for her even if she just “met some really cool people.”

Shelby shared, “I have never thought of myself as being a generous person. I share my financial resources with my church and charities, but until this experience, I have never thought of giving an organ as being a generous act. I only thought about giving my money when considering generosity, but generosity is more that giving your money.”

“There is a direct correlation between obedience and generosity. I had a major revelation this past week when I received a phone call confirming that everything was a go for the Atlanta surgical team and the Seattle team, and that the transplant would take place on December 27. I was driving home from school for the Christmas break.

Shelby continued, “I asked myself, why am I so happy about giving a kidney? Most people don’t look forward to having an operation—especially one where they remove an organ from your body. It hit me that this is not a sacrifice, it is a time when I get to obey the Lord. Our natural motivation is to be selfishly motivated or to do something with selfish intent.”

“Our society motivates us to give to our church or to charitable organizations or to volunteer for school credit or something. Now I am of the mindset that biblical generosity is only possible when you are obeying the Lord.”

On December 27, Shelby will have surgery at Piedmont Hospital in Atlanta where a surgical team will remove one of her kidneys. A member of the surgical team at the Seattle hospital will be standing by to transport the kidney to the University of Washington Medical Center where a team will implant the kidney into Maggie’s body.