AMiracleofLove.doc

A Miracle of Love Shirlee Allison My grandson, Daniel, and I have always been very close. When Daniel’s father remarried after a divorce, Daniel, who was eleven, and his little sister, Kristie, came to live with us. My husband and I were more than happy to have kids in the house again. Things were going along just fine until the diabetes(糖尿病) I’ve lived with most of my adult life started affecting my eyes, and then more seriously, my kidneys(肾). Then everything seemed to fall apart. Three times a week, I had to go to the hospital to be hooked up to a dialysis machine(透析机). I was living, but I couldn抰 really call it a life ?it was an existence. I had no energy. I dragged myself through my daily chores and slept as much as I could. My sense of humor seemed to disappear. Daniel, seventeen by then, was really affected by the change in me. He tried as hard as he could to make me laugh, to bring back the grandma who loved to clown around（开玩笑） with him. Even in my sorry state, Daniel could still bring a smile to my face. But things were not improving. After a year on dialysis, my condition was deteriorating（恶化） and the doctors felt that if I didn’t receive a kidney transplant within six months, I would surely die. No one told Daniel this, but he knew — he said all he had to do was look after me. To top it off（更糟糕的是）, as my condition worsened, there was a chance I would become too weak to have the transplant surgery at all, and then there would be nothing they could do for me. So we started the tense and desperate wait for a kidney. I was adamant(坚决的) that I didn’t want a kidney from anyone I knew. I would wait until an appropriate kidney became available, or I would literally die waiting. But Daniel had other plans. The time that he took me to my dialysis appointments, he did a little secret research on his own. Then he announced his intentions to me. 揋randma, I抦 giving you one of my kidneys. I抦 young and I抦 healthy厰He paused. He could see I wasn抰 at all happy with h