In a shocking turn of events, we received a call on Friday afternoon that no parent going through this ever wants to receive. We found out that Jackson has developed an antibody, and when his blood and mine are mixed, his body immediately started to fight. This means if we were to transplant my kidney into Jackson’s body, it would go into immediate rejection. Heartbroken and devastated do not even begin to explain how we feel. It honestly feels like someone has died. I’m so incredibly sad, I can’t stop the tears from flowing.

We have a couple of options, neither of which is happening next week. There is something called a Paired Exchange Program where a willing donor (me) agrees to still donate and then list Jackson and myself in their database and find a recipient that could take my kidney and a donor for Jackson. We could also begin the process of Matt getting worked up, which is also not a fast process. We will likely see if we can do both options in parallel.

So that’s it. No transplant is happening next week. I had to contact a bunch of people who were lined up to help with various things while we were gone, need to unpack what we had to ready to go, etc.

We will keep everyone updated. For now, please pray that we find a kidney for Jackson so that we can move this process along.

We will keep moving forward. I’m just thankful that Jackson doesn’t feel the disappointment and sadness in his heart that I do. And on the bright side, if we move forward with the paired exchange program, not only Jackson benefits but potentially several other recipients.