Love, faith and medical miracles

I woke up Monday before the sun did, short of breath. I stirred and untangled from the sheets, tried to walk it off. It wouldn't leave. I turned to my old crutch, my nemesis, my hero. I slipped the tiny white nitroglycerin pill across my lips and under my tongue and counted the seconds until it dissolved. The sun wasn't up before I took the first rescue pill of the day. I wondered if they were taking my sister yet. **** An hour to the east, the country's top-rated hospital for cardiac surgery was a hive of activity at that hour. We'd been told the day before to expect my sister would be taken down about that time to start a much-needed heart surgery. There was a delay, word came from family on-site, posting vigil from the hospital's main campus. Many of us had visited in shifts the day before, and handfuls had gone back early that morning to wait throughout the several-hour procedure. Hours later when word came through the jumble of texts that she was out of surgery, that the doctors said everything went well, I think I took my first full breath of the day, unaware I'd been that apprehensive. I understood when a friend remarked a few days later that she felt she could finally breathe after she received word that her beloved grandson, in the intensive care unit with an illness stumping specialists, was finally responding to treatment. "Life is so fragile," she posted on social media. Yes. **** I'm closer in age to my sister's daughter than I am to my sister, Loreen, but since I was a child I felt we were twins separated by birth years. We look alike, and we have very nearly the same name. Even our nicknames are nearly identical. We are the tallest, we like dark chocolate, pickles, biographies, big hair. I used to count every way we were alike when I was a kid because I wanted to be just like my glamorous and kind big sister. But we were not alike in one way, and it made all the difference: My sister was sick. At 13 she was diagnosed with type 1 diabetes and for the next 39 years she struggled, mightily, to keep her body going despite the disease attacking her kidneys, her eyes, her arteries, her organs. In 2010, she was put on the transplant list for a new kidney. I was living in Columbus at the time and within minutes of getting the go-ahead I was in a lab, having my blood tested for compatibility. A bunch of us up north were doing the same. But a different plan was unfolding the entire time. The last week of April her doctor told her she could no longer hold out; her kidneys were functioning so poorly she had to go on dialysis. It was what she had been dreading more than anything. She told him she didn't think so, that she'd be getting her miracle first. The doctor humored her, effectively saying, "If you say so. And I hope you are right. But I've been doing this for a long time and I've only seen two patients ever who've gotten a transplant come through before dialysis." She told him to get ready because she was about to be his third. My sister took her phone to bed. "I said, 'What are you doing? Your daughter is going to give you a kidney,'" her husband Mike said. "We had it all worked out, you know. But she was expecting fully to get a call. And two days later she did, in the middle of the night. That is the faith of your sister." It was a kidney and pancreas — which means it was an extraordinary blessing for my sister, an end to her diabetes. But it also meant it was from a cadaver. "We never lose sight that what was our blessing is somebody else's grief," Mike said. "An unselfish donor family gave us this greatest gift." The new lease on life came with its own restrictions in another way: immunosuppressant drugs left her vulnerable to so many illnesses and Loreen being Loreen, well — walling her off isn't going to work. Loving on people is what she does. Mike is a pastor, leading the Cathedral of Life Church in North Ridgeville. Loreen is a pastor, too, what Mike calls the church's heart. "Her heart is wrapped up in people," said her husband of almost 49 years. "She lives and breathes helping people. She's the main heartbeat of the church. The pulse. She looks at how people are treated, she's very humble in her approach, she doesn't want anybody hurt. She has a genuine, absolutely genuine heart for people, period." There seems to be something poetic about that. That's how we differ, my sister and I; I'm the one given to sardonic commentary. She's the one who walks in the light. She is a Hallmark movie; I'm Lifetime. But we both have broken hearts. We discuss this just days before her surgery. How many heart attacks have you had? Who is ahead? We laugh. But my sister's light — oh, her light. It outshines the noonday sun. When the word went out that she needed prayer this week, thousands responded. The family of her kidney/pancreas donor from so many years ago messaged, praying for her recovery. It was the same last year when we discovered she had fungal meningitis that spread to her brain and eyes, that kept her in the hospital for more than two months. Truthfully, Mike admits, we thought we were going to lose her. I have six siblings — and two lead churches. Once again the gates of heaven were rattling with prayer warriors, so many people rallying for this woman that means so much to so many. "Could you take it? All she's been through?" Mike asked me. "This many mountains to climb? I don't know that I could, but Reen could. God knew she had the heart to do it." The night before her surgery, she says if anything happens she is at peace. If she lives, all the better. She has things to do, people to love. Life is so fragile. Contact Chronicle-Telegram columnist Rini Jeffers at rinijeffers@gmail.com.