Can't please everyone

Entry Word: compromise
Function: noun
Text: the act or practice of each side giving up something in order to reach an agreement

It appears that in between the pleading for people to share the stories of organ donation, the difficulty of the Organ Donation Awareness project, my son being sick and me sleeping on the floor of the bathroom with him, the recipient possibly getting a bed sore, or even the remote possibility of him having a stroke and the difficulty that we will undergo taking care of the recipient and his wife when I have to go out of town for my own job and the questionable care the recipient was receiving in the hospital.....I have upset someone.

I rarely hear from the readers of this blog. There are a few dedicated ones, and I am pretty sure I respond you you all. So either I do an absolutely incredible job communicating the situation here or some people just don't want to comment. No problem. Sometimes no comments probably mean I am doing a good job. Thank you.

This blog is a delicate balance of Organ Donation and personal accounts. It's a compromise. My compromise is that I don't identify anyone by name unless they are already a public persona. I already get flack from some family members that I even have a web presence. I can't imagine the 10 of you a day divulging the family secrets that I have here on the blog.....you already know everything. Maybe it's the one or two random readers that accidentally find the blog. But do they return? I will never know.

It started out as a documentary effort of my journey as I try to donate my own liver to save the life, or at least extend the life, of the recipient. Most people would do that for someone they are related to. A few would do it for a non blood relative or close friend. A very minute number of people would do it for a stranger. I know this because I talk to people about organ donation several times a week. I know this because there are more than 95 thousand people waiting for an organ. I know this because there are 6 thousand people that will die this year when they don't get an organ. I know this because I am living it!

I was willing to do it for someone that is not my blood relative or my own offspring. I even asked if I could donate my liver altruistically. That means that if for some reason I couldn't donate to the recipient then my liver (parts of it anyway) would go to someone that is waiting but cannot get one from their own relative or a deceased donor. I was denied at that point too. But I wanted to do it.

So when someone gets upset because they didn't like a sentence or paragraph of what I ambiguously wrote in a blog post it upsets me knowing they fixated on a small portion of the whole work that is contained in the blog.

Why am I getting this upset? I put my whole being into this blog. I put my heart out here and I am very, very careful to post very accurate information as I hear it, see it and experience it. While there might be other blogs and web sites that can make the same claim, it's this one that you are reading. If I didn't put out my true feelings on this blog then it would be misleading and a disservice. Remember, I started this blog so other organ donors could know what it's like to go through the process of donation. I wasn't able to get to that point, so I report what it's like to experience knowing a person that has received an organ. In this case it was from a from a deceased donor.

Out of all the activities going on in this blog and there is one thing upsets you, then I am sorry that there are people in this world that can't see the forest for the trees.

The funny thing about this is that two people that rarely talk to each other (from my understanding and recollection), even though they live only a few miles apart, have talked on the phone. At least I can sleep tonight thinking I brought people together......

And to be absolutely fair, you had people stand up for you. Here is something that was said on your behalf:
This was from an email "The comments seemed a bit hurtful to those reading it, I am sure. I know when this much STRESS is flying around it is easy to point fingers........." Another comment was made on your benefit but I can't remember the exact statement so I won't put it here to maintain the integrity and accuracy of the blog.

To end this post, I wasn't pointing fingers to lay blame or cause guilt. I was just commenting that what did happen, was what I expected to happen. Or more accurately, wasn't a surprise when it did happen.