Has your transplant/disease changed your relationship with other people?

Shelbycreates

I'm wondering how your relationships (romantic, extended family, friends, etc.) have changed since becoming ill/needing a transplant. I was lucky because I felt like my relationship got stronger with my husband when we found out I had so many health concerns. I feel like it focused us on what is truly important. But I've also heard of people saying that getting sick has strained their relationships more. What has your experience been?

AliEm14

For me my marriage and my relationships with my immediate family (parents, siblings) got stronger. Pretty much all my friendships dissolved. I went through extreme changes physically, mentally and emotionally and my response to that was to hermit. A lot of people didn’t, or couldn’t, accept that, or accept how I chose to process my transplant

GeraldWayman

My relationship with my wife definitely got stronger as we grew closer together. She has been such a wonderful caregiver to me and made so many sacrifices in her life to be at my side. Our love has grown much stronger. We have eight children and they have grown closer to us and to each other. My brother was is my first donor and my children have seen how my close relationship with my siblings has blessed me through this experience.

We live in a small town and I am a school teacher at the local high school. My wife is also the librarian at the local elementary school. We are well known by almost everyone in the community. Because of my experience, my family has been strong promoters of organ donation in our community. I have been on the radio and in the newspaper multiple times . When I went into kidney failure the third time the entire community was well aware of my need for another donor and 117 people in our community signed up to see if they could be a donor. It was very touching to have that kind of support especially knowing how many people have little support.

I would like to share an experience I had that was close to this subject. It is close to my heart and better that I write it then try to speak it because I would be very emotional trying to speak. About 3 months after my last transplant I was in the hospital early in the morning to do labs. I was sitting in the waiting room and one of my neighbors walked in and sat down by me. She was a little emotional so I asked her how she was doing and if I could do anything to help her. With Tears In Her Eyes she said, "I want to thank you."

I said "Thank me for what?"

She said "Thank you for saving my life "

I was quite surprised by her response and asked how I had saved her life. She explained to me that she had signed up to be an organ donor for me and made it through the first 2 steps but when she was tested with all the lab stuff they inform her she could not be a donor but needed to go see a cancer doctor. She immediately went to see the cancer doctor and it was discovered she had a serious form of cancer but they had found it early and would be able to treat it. 6 months later she was cancer free. That morning in the hospital she was having her last check up and had just been told she was cancer-free. I told her with tears in my eyes that she was trying to save my life and because of that she saved her own life. We had a long hug together and are much closer neighbors now.

There are so many miracles that take place in organ donation, if we stop and look we can see many of them. It strengthens all of us and brings us closer together. Thank you.

Saveddonna55

I have always been blessed to have good relationships with my husband, family and friends pre-transplant. With having a pancreas transplant, I no longer have diabetes. My family and friends would always be concerned about low blood sugars for good reasons. My husband was always fearful I would die as the low blood sugars were awful. People think that there is a better way to control the diabetes but I was unsuccessful. The transplant worked wonders for all of us. I was safe and so were others. My husband and family no longer worry as they had in the past. To: Gerald Wayman: you are blessed to have a strong community that cares so much and I’m pleased the lady who had cancer is doing so much better. Organ donation is wonderful and I wish more people would consider it.