Thank you all so much for the outpouring of support and affection after my announcement about having kidney cancer and my upcoming surgery. The date is now set for Thursday, December 18th and I'll be in the hospital from Tuesday the 16th. I could be in from 8 to 12 days in total, depending on how things go afterward. (Based on my gall bladder operation I think I'm a slow healer.) I'm relieved that they're doing the surgery sooner rather than later, even it it may possibly mean I spend part or all of Christmas recuperating in the hospital (because they won't kick me out until I'm really ready). And I have an amazing team of surgeons lined up, so everything is perfect and in place. The sooner the better to just get it over with and move onto whatever is next afterward.
Your messages of support have warmed and cheered me to no end. This morning I received one in particular that I just had to share with you: it was an email from my friend "C" whom I have known longer than any other friend in my life and even longer than my own sister; she and I have been friends since I was 1 and she was 2! My mom tells me "C" whacked me over the head with a shovel in the sandbox on the first playdate we had, and we've been life-long friends ever since.
In her email, "C" told me that when she told her daughter, who I think is 13 or 14, and whom I have never actually met in person because they moved far away from our home state of New Jersey years ago, about my situation, her daughter asked: "What blood type is Lisa?" My friend was surprised by the question and asked why she wanted to know.
Her daughter replied: "Because if we're the same blood type, I want to give her one of my kidneys."
I burst into tears when I read that, I was so moved by such generosity and compassion from anyone, especially from one so young. Fortunately my other kidney is just fine so I don't need a transplant, but the fact that a girl that age would even THINK of doing such a thing - I am humbled beyond words.
It's so uplifting to know that there are so many people pulling for me. I really do appreciate it and so does Georges.
And some day soon I hope my friend and her marvelous young daughter will come to Paris so I can show them the time of their lives. I cannot wait to meet this girl!
