So the past 2 years our beloved Grandma Somers has been on dialysis and waiting for a new kidney. In those past years all of her children have been tested and have not been matches. She has other siblings and family members who have been tested also without success. It has been a trial for their family to have her live almost a half life as she is in dialysis for 3 days a week and wiped out those days after she gets home. She is a very hard match due to the number of babies she has had as well as other factors. A couple weeks ago she was informed there may be a match for her in a triangle exchange. Dennis is willing to give someone his kidney if they are willing to give her a kidney. There are many people in this triangle so it's more of a circle but it boils down to that. She was just informed last week that the operation will be October 20th and she will have chemo 2 weeks prior to that so she won't reject the kidney. So great news for her; we're all very excited and a little nervous for them both.
Dennis, Diane and Alex on his 21st birthday
The hard part of that news is Rick's youngest brother Alex is engaged and his fiance is coming from Peru on October 17th. She will be living with them as will their 6 month old daughter. They wanted to be married October 29th but they have since pushed back the date, for sanity reasons, to November 5th. This is a new engagement so not much planning has been done previous. Oh, and did I mention the wedding is in my home. So as we are getting ready for both grandparents to undergo surgery on the same day, we're planning a wedding, in our home. Basically everything for the wedding needs to be done prior to October 6th, that is when Diane starts chemo. After that we really don't think she is going to be up to doing much.
Both of these are very exciting events that we've been praying for a long time. It is hard to have them both a couple weeks apart. Luckily she has a very supportive church ward and we live close by. Luckily also my mom lives close by and can help with my kids so I can prepare for these major events. Oh, and one more thing, it's Rick's fiscal year end at the end of October, hooray! So yesterday I painted the front room where the ceremony will be and in the next month I will have to deep clean my main floor and go back and forth to the hospital. We hope and pray everything goes smoothly. All of the kids have altered their prayers to not just get grandma a new kidney but that she and grandpa will stay healthy this next month and their surgeries will go well. It makes my heart swell every time to hear them pray to God for their grandparents. I honestly wonder if those family members who refused to be tested heard these prayers on a hourly basis, how they would feel. It isn't a perfect match like a family member could be but hopefully it will hold for a couple years. So between a lot of hard work and all our prayers we will get through this next month, hopefully in one piece (or in Dennis's case 2 pieces :).)
