Preparing for the Worst

We are on vacation this week. It's sunny. I'm with my family and my sister's family and our parents. There's a pool and generous amounts of oysters and adult beverages.

It was also interrupted by a crisis. Which isn't really surprising, I guess. On the first full day of vacation I received a call from our care team for our kids. They were very alarmed to get our son's lab numbers from two days prior that revealed kidney rejection lab numbers.

I was in a store to buy flip flops when someone on the team called to tell me to come over to the hospital, that they'd be admitting my son for IV fluids and steroids to stop his body from rejecting his kidney.

The story details are here.

I am not surprised it happened, this beast is everywhere.

I kicked into gear and planned out the different scenarios on the way to the city we had to go to for labs and treatment an hour and a half away. I helped prepare my son for what might happen. I preplanned a getaway trip for him since he would miss our family vacation.

It's what I do. I stay 15 steps ahead of where I am because our life demands it. The planning helps me cope with what might come. It gives me a control I otherwise do not have in very many facets of my life.


I'm not surprised I planned out the scenarios but I was surprised about the depth of fear I had for my son rejecting his transplanted kidney, even though I have always known this is a very real possibility for both of my kids.

The fear caught me so off guard that I have lost my footing on the beast, or the footing I thought I had on the beast. And I am not handling that well.



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Julia blogs at Kidneys and Eyes and started Support for Special Needs. She's hoping to raise activists and advocates in her two kids who've faced kidney transplants and need liver transplants one day, too.