Did I leave anything else to write?

So after having 24 hours to stew on the idea of writing this blog daily I have began to doubt myself, wondering if I just threw my best pitch and am going to have to finish this with a bunch of junk pitches (sorry for the baseball metaphor). 

I appreciate all the positive responses I received on facebook and email, they really have been uplifting to keep me going, but I can’t help but wondering if it is just people being nice.  I guess the problem is I’m so used to getting yelled at during sports that I don’t know what to do with positive reinforcement and I start wondering.  Am I the kid that keeps playing because everyone is afraid to tell him he isn’t any good (back to sports analogies).

Finally I decided a good writer has to have the mentality of a defensive back, if you get beat on one play it doesn’t matter you just have to go out and play the next one (ok I promise I am done with the sports references).   

So where did I leave off? 

We came back from Peru, and I had formed some amazing new relationships.  I was in a men’s bible study, I had a date with a beautiful girl, and my life was looking up. 

Hold on let me take a step back a minute, let’s talk about how Ashley helped Kate and I get together.  On one of the last days in Pucallpa (or maybe in the airport in Lima), Ashley and I were walking and talking and as Ashley is known to do, she just made some wise remark about how I seemed to be interested in Kate.  I think I tried to be funny and say something about how did Ashley know I wasn’t interested in her since I had spent about as much time with her, and she just laughed and told me not to waste my time, she was too good for me.  Then as any confident man would do, I asked “well do you think she likes me, I thought maybe she liked Stephen?”  Ashley told me that Stephen was too short for Kate (sorry if your reading this Stephen), and that was all the confidence I needed to make the next step with Kate.  So if I have never said it Ashley THANKS for the nudge.

So now we are back in the states, and the first night we were back LTQENUIKP (Los teamos Quatros, es numero uno, Inca Kola, Pantalones), went out for some Karaoke at Foster’s Lounge, I will post some pictures because words don’t do it justice, but Kate and I busted out what has become my favorite Karaoke song,(You’re the reason are kids are ugly by Loretta Lynn and Conway Twitty).  Please click the link to check out how the song goes,  sorry there is no video of us singing it. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iFq6eZBS1iM

Probably the funniest thing about that night was this 70 year old man busting out bringing sexy back, it might be the funniest thing I have ever seen, and he was on the radio several months later, Classic.

The following night Kate and I went on our first date to Sailfish Marina, if you want to know why it took till the following night it was because we both had to end relationships that we were in when we went on the trip.  Now I know what you’re thinking and shame on you.  Nothing inappropriate happened on the mission trip, and we didn’t even talk about dating until the plane ride home, however I told Kate if we were going to date it was going to be exclusive and it wasn’t just going to be this just lets be friends and see what happens kind of thing.  So we could not start our relationship until we had no other commitments.

 So on our first date we went to Sailfish Marina on Singer Island and walked down to the Jetty, and got slurpees.  You really can’t have a first date without slurpees, come on guys.   It was a great night and the first of what became many more dates.  And on that note I think I am going to go get a slurpee.

Kidney Crazy

So I have been thinking about how to start this blog since well, it’s too long ago to remember at this point.  Kate and I have been discussing this since August of 2010 when we visited Ashley in the hospital at UNC Chapel Hill.  Yet alone the first time I discussed this with Ashley on a couch in Lima, Peru at about 3 in the morning in June of 2007.  So needless to say this has been a long time coming. 

I considered doing it like a play and how people respond when I tell them about it.

Me:  I’m donating a kidney to my wife’s best friend from college.

Them:  Are you crazy, I mean I know you’re crazy but that is a pretty big deal, have you thought about it?

Me:  Yup I’m crazy and I’m doing it, and yes we have put a lot of thought into it.

But that gets kind of boring fast plus I’m really not that good of an actor in print.  So I will answer some basic questions that I figure everyone wants to know the answer too, and then I am going to start from the beginning from my point of view.  Maybe I can get Ashley or Kate to chime in from time to time with their perspective to make it a little more interesting and to give me a break.  Well I hope you enjoy it and to quote my favorite online writer, Bill Simmons, “we will give you a full refund”.

• When is this happening? – Right now the hospital is holding Feb 7^th or Feb 14^th for the surgery.  I have a doctor’s appt on Jan 20^th with a nephrologist (kidney doctor) which should just be a formality.  NC State Law requires all donors to be consulted by a separate nephrologist then the receipt, thus getting an unbiased opinion.  The nephrologist I saw at UNC had consulted on Ashley’s case.  So I need to see yet another one to make sure we have everything in order.
• Who are you giving it too? – Kate’s best friend from college, Ashley Quinones.
• Where is the surgery? – Chapel Hill, NC at the University of North Carolina Medical Center, Go Tarheels

Ephesians 5:15-17 - Be very careful, then, how you live – not as unwise but as wise, making the most of every opportunity, because the days are evil.  Therefore do not be foolish, but understand what the Lord’s will is.

As I type that verse I have to say I hadn’t been making the most of every opportunity back in 2007, however for some reason God led me to a mission trip to Pucallpa, Peru which changed my life.  I met Kate in a mission trip meeting, all I remember is she was wearing some incredibly bright color shoes and had one of her bags, which for those of you who know are also very vibrantly colored.  I thought to myself I wonder what the girl from Palm Beach is doing going to the jungles of Peru. Kate’s recollection of that meeting is a little different; I think the exact quote from her is “were you even at that meeting”.  Little did I know that going on 5 years later we would be having our third wedding anniversary on January 25^th (shameless plug to prove I remember it, and remind myself to buy a present). 

I wouldn’t meet Ashley until several months later when she came into town for one of the team meetings.  I mean who fly’s from North Carolina to Florida for a mission trip team meeting, I remember thinking both Kate and Ashley were a lot of fun, I actually went over to Kates house and helped make trail mix for the trip, Kates sister Betsy wondered who I was interested in I guess we know how that turned out. 

Anyway Kate and I were broken up into the same 5 person small group of the mission team, and David Oates looked at us and said we have a pretty good idea who will take the lead of that group, and well 5 years later we are still trying to figure that part out. 

Sorry right about now you have to be wondering when am I going to start talking about the kidney and why so much about Kate and my relationship.  Well I’m sorry but my relationship with Ashley began at exactly the same time as my relationship with my wife, and there is just no way to tell the story without including mine and Kate’s story.  In truth there is no story bringing us to this point without our story.  Lastly I will always refer to the decision to donate a kidney as our decision, I didn’t decide to donate a kidney to Ashley, Kate and I decided one of us would.  It just turned out that the one of us became me.

Back to the story, Kate, Ashley, Stephen and I became an instant group on the trip, I can’t really explain it to you but “Los Teamos Quatros, es numero uno, Inca Kola, Pantalones” (that’s what we called ourselves) were inseparable.  And I can’t help but smile thinking about it now.  That trip has redefined my life in ways that I couldn’t possibly explain, almost 5 years later I went from the guy sitting in the back of church because I was supposed to go, to a man leading multiple Bible study’s and having several other leadership positions within the church (But I digress because I am on the second page of the first blog entry and this could fill up several more).

At the end of the trip when we were back in Lima, the four of us went back out after everyone went to bed at the hotel.  We went down by the Pacific Ocean, which in Mira Flores, Lima doesn’t really smell all that nice, and from everyone I have told this story too tells me, we are still lucky to be alive.  Anyway at about 2AM Kate and Stephen headed up to their rooms for bed.    Ashley and I stayed down in the lobby on the couches.  I know I can’t recite the entire conversation we had in the lobby, but we laughed, we cried, and we prayed a lot.  I get goose bumps right now thinking about it, it was a very special night that is hard to forget.  That is when Ashley let me know that at some point in her life she would need a kidney.  We talked about what that meant and how to determine if someone was a match and we realized we had the same blood type.  I told her right there that day, that she could have one of mine. 

Now you’re thinking ok anyone would have said that, and I agree that is true, but I was dead serious at that time.  The only thing I have ever been surer about was asking Kate to marry me almost exactly one year later.  I’m not sure that I realized that day, over 4 years ago now, would have led to this point, but I know God had a plan for putting both of us on that trip, at that exact point in our lives, and I know that it is bigger than our friendship. 

I know there are risks involved; I know a lot of people can’t understand this choice. But if you could understand the changes God has made in my life, and what he has done for me, the true question becomes; how could I not do the thing that he put me on that trip for?  This is why he put Ashley in my life.  Ashley and I made this decision in Peru in June of 2007, Kate and I confirmed it in August of 2010, and now we are very close to it actually happening. 

I hope you continue to read the blog, as it fills in the rest of the story, I just thought it was important to give you a foundation of where it all started. 

So Much to Say

So it has been over 2 years since Kate has posted on this blog. A lot of things have happened since then, we have been back to peru twice, traveled to London and Greece, bought an 18 year old Jeep Wrangler (man i'm old since it was brand new the year i graduated from high school), and welcomed two more nephews to the family. However I'm guessing that is not why you are reading this blog today.

As you probably know at this point, Kate and I have been going through the process of donating a kidney to one of Kate's dearest friends Ashley Quinones. After a lot of consideration, because we are both blood type matches, we decided for our family it worked best if I was the donor. So we embarked on the process of becoming an approved Kidney Donor.

To make a long story short over a year and a half later we are very close to having an approved date to start the donation. The hospital is holding the dates of Feb 7th and Feb 14th for the surgery and hopefully we will be approved as soon as Friday Jan 20th or Monday Jan 23rd. It has been a long process and for many reasons that I will try to dive into over the next several weeks in the blog we have waited to go public until now.

We have had great support from family and the few friends that we have confided in over this time and it has been greatly appreciated. Over the next month I will be blogging on a daily basis to bring you up to date on the story that began in March 2007 when I met both Ashley and Kate. I know I'm not much of a writer, and I have no idea how to use a comma, or when to use a period. However it is a really good story so you will want to stay tuned.

As for now we could really use your prayers leading up to the donation, It has been a very exciting time for us as a family but can be very stressfull at the same time. We look forward to sharing this journey with you. You can follow us at the following locations.

http://www.facebook.com/jeremymorris37

http://www.facebook.com/kjmmorris

https://twitter.com/#!/JeremyMorris37

Other ways you can help our by checking out Ashley's page, she has been fundraising for well over a year and has done an amazing job but still needs to raise more money. I have put the link below.

http://www.facebook.com/kidneycutie

http://cota.donorpages.com/PatientOnlineDonation/COTAforAshleyQ/

New Set of Wheels

We have 4 new wheels - 2 Bikes that is

Jeremy and I are getting back on the bike. We bought two new bikes from Craig's List. We plan on riding them around town. We want to cut down on gas, help the environment and get a little exercise. Both bikes have baskets for all our shopping trips - it will cut down on what we can buy!

I foresee many Publix runs, target trips (please open soon), CityPlace strolls and rides to church (once the weather gets cooler).

Jeremy's Bike

A Vintage 1960's Schwin

Kate's Bike

It has a bell and a basket. The basket can be removed for all my shopping trips!!!

We have already ventured to CityPlace and Home Depot. Look out for us around town.