This is only the second time I’ve done this.
I began writing this weekly blog twenty years ago. After retiring from the local pastorate, I wanted to continue to encourage believers in their faith. I also desired the discipline of staying abreast of current events and how they impacted those of us who follow Jesus Christ. While my readership isn’t in the millions, there are several thousand who read my Sunday night posts regularly and for that I am very grateful.
This post is different. This week I am using this venue to appeal for a kidney donor for Dr. Mike Veal, who served so well as my primary care physician for three decades. Mike was good to me and became a friend and confidant. Now I want to help him if I possibly can. You can read about Dr. Veal’s past influence and his present circumstance by visiting kidneyfordrmike.com. Mike has served his country in Vietnam, his church as an elder, and his patients as a compassionate caregiver. He has been a faithful family man and certainly merits a return to normalcy and an extension of his life.
This is only the second time I’ve made an appeal of this nature, and I trust my readers will understand it is not a precedent to be repeated and will not become a regular feature. Eight years ago I made a similar appeal for a kidney for Nancy Waddell, the wife of Don Waddell, longtime associate minister at Southeast Christian Church. At the time Don was serving as my Administrative Assistant, and Nancy had battled M.S. since she was a teenager. Then in her sixties, her kidneys had failed, she was on dialysis, and her prognosis was grim.
We praised God our prayers were answered. A middle-aged woman who had never met Nancy responded to the blog and made the sacrificial decision to donate one of her kidneys. Nancy received her new kidney well and has lived a much more productive life for the past eight years. She is deeply grateful for the donor, who in turn received the satisfaction of knowing she had helped another to live.
I’m hopeful we’ll be able to do the same for Dr. Mike Veal. Of course, not all potential donors are a match. Mike’s blood type is O positive, and the donor must have the same blood type. The donor must be under 75 years old and cancer free. Other qualifications are determined through the living donor questionnaire.
Most living donor surgeries are now done laparoscopically, and patients are usually dismissed from the hospital 24-48 hours following surgery. But let’s be honest — this is a call for someone to make a huge sacrifice. Human beings can live with one kidney, but it’s no small request to endure surgery and face the remainder of life with only one kidney. Yet sacrifice is defined as “giving up something you love for something (or someone) you love more.”
The Bible says, “Love is not self-seeking” (1 Corinthians 13:5). And Jesus promised that even “a cup of cold water” given to one of His followers would be rewarded by God in heaven (Matthew 10:42).
If you are not a match, or you aren’t in a position to make such a serious sacrifice, but you’d like to send Mike an encouraging note, his email address is kidneyfordoctormike@gmail.com. And please join with me in praying that a donor can be found and that God will work a miracle through medicine to extend the life of our beloved friend, Dr. Mike Veal.
