The latest.....

I have received a lot of mail requesting and update on Dave, and I thought this might be the best forum to give everyone that update.

First, he did great on his stress test! The doctor was very impressed with the strength of his heart and the relatively good health that Dave is in (minus of course his end stage renal disease). Funny, about 10 years ago if someone were to mention to either of us that our health was good, we would have thought, “Well, yeah...so what?”

The reports were faxed over to Cedars Sinai this past Friday. When the transplant committee checks things over, supposedly on Thursday, his case will then be officially OPEN!! This means that all of the potential donors can get their blood tested, and we can see who the best match to Dave is. All of us have submitted our paper work, so we are ready to go.

For everyone except Alex, who has already had all the invasive testing, there will be more testing to follow, but we'll cross that bridge as we have to. Most of the other stuff is to make sure the donor is a healthy candidate, and that his/her life would not be adversely affected if he/she were to donate a kidney. As of right now, Alex is still on board and seems to want to donate to Dave if the blood testing shows them to be a match.

One very interesting thing happened this past Thursday morning. I received a call form a lady in Arizona, looking for Dave. Thinking it was your run-of-the-mill cold call, I told her who I was, and offered to assist her. To my amazement, she got Dave’s info online at matchingdonors.com, and wanted to speak to him about being a donor! Isn’t that amazingly wonderful???? I mean, God has really been raining blessings on us this past month from all over the place.

We now have 5 people, including myself, that will be tested to donate to Dave.

Thanks for all your prayers, and well wishes. Thanks also for lifting him up in prayer at your churches and prayer groups. We are witnessing the miracle of prayer on so many levels.

Looking Good

Thank you for all your prayers today! I just wanted to fill everyone in on what the latest is...

Dave has been initially cleared through Cedars Sinai. All he needs to get to them are results from a stress test (and I will schedule that this afternoon for next week). After that test gets read and sent to them, they will present his case to their committee and then once he is approved financially and physically ( which is more a formality, now), he will be on the active list at Cedars. It's at this point that his potential donor(s) can test. Then ( I believe) the transplant can take place relatively soon after all that. We are really hoping to get this done sometime within the next few months!

Things are really moving ahead at a great pace. Once again, thank you for all the prayers, and positive messages we have received. Please pass on word to your prayer warriors, churches and friends who have held Dave up in prayer. Share with them how grateful we are to all of them, and how God is working in this matter. :)

News....

I wanted to share with everyone an update on how things have progressed from the email I sent out on Wednesday. Could you all tell how frustrated I was?!! Oh my, what a day!

Once again you guys have prayed us through a very difficult time! We remain eternally grateful! We finally got approval to move ahead at Cedars Sinai. Dave will go through the evaluation, and then onto meeting the surgeon and the entire transplant team next Friday. His testing for organ compatability will begin that day, too. Then his donor can re-test right away.

Things are moving along at a really great pace. Much quicker than at UCLA! Funny how now, in total retrospect, we can see God’s hand at work. I guess that’s the trick to having faith during the times that look the bleakest. I'm afraid I still often stumble in that area.

Please know how much Dave and I appreciate all your love, support, and prayers! We love you guys!

Update on the meeting

Since I'm not ready to send out an "all points bulletin" just yet, I will briefly cover what went down at today's meeting between Dave and the potential kidney donor.

It went well. Really well. While the donor still plans on meeting with a couple other possible recipients within the next couple weeks, the two guys got a chance to talk in depth and sort of bond a bit.

The next order of business is for Dave to contact the transplant program's director at UCLA and demand that testing begin ASAP. They have given us the run around and not medically cleared him to begin testing, which will be addressed, rather sternly, tomorrow. Once Dave gets some testing done we will compare it to his potential donor, who has already had his testing, and see how compatible the two are. That's a big issue, and really the place we need to start.

So as of right now, our plan is to get up to UCLA and get this ball rolling!

Once testing has been completed, we can transfer to another program or stick with UCLA, whatever would be the most advantageous for all concerned.

As always, your prayers are truly appreciated!

A kidney donor may have been found!

We may have found a potential kidney donor who will be meeting with Dave this Sunday. It's all happening so quickly, that we are a bit blown away. This is the third conversation and first actual meeting between them. He got Dave's info from an online matching program....and while we weren't too sure that such generous (truly altruistic) people actually existed, I guess they do!

If I may be so bold, if you are a person who believes in the power of prayer, please lift up this situation, my husband and his potential donor in prayer this weekend. Whether or not Dave is the recipient, we know that this generous, heroic man will give someone the gift of life. Amazing! We definitely pray that God leads him to the right organ recipient.

I believe that God's timing is perfect, so if this is the answer to our prayers, we will be thrilled. But if not, we know that ultimately God is in control.

Thanks so much!!