I have faith. I also have doubt. And I seriously doubted I would be a match to give my husband a kidney as a living donor.  Sure, I went through the process of completing the paperwork, answering the questions during the phone interview and giving seven vials of blood for testing.

Imagine my surprise when the transplant coordinator called and said she had great news. I am a match. Tim and I were running Christmas errands and walking through a parking lot when she called. We were both stunned by the news. We had hoped and prayed for it but doubt was trumping faith. That call changed everything, especially the depth of our belief that God is in control and has been for a very long time.

Of the 10,000 kidney transplants last year, 75 percent were from recently deceased donors, 25 percent from family relatives, and less than 1percent from others. I’m in the less than 1 percent category. It feels like we’re living a miracle right now. Who knew when we married over 34 years ago that I would actually be the perfect match in this way?

For several days after receiving this miraculous news, my mind kept wandering to decisions I’ve made throughout my lifetime that brought me to my first job out of college in Elk City. You can read more about those decisions at the end of the blog and see a really cheesy photo from Valentine’s Day 2018.

First, though, here’s some more of the medical stuff:

I spent six+ hours at Integris on Jan. 3 going through lots of tests and interviews to make sure I’m a viable living donor candidate. I passed everything with flying colors except cholesterol.  That means less bacon in my future but more kale. (Picture a sarcasm emoji here.) The next test required by the medical team is a full cardiac screening including a treadmill test. That’s happening at the end of this month. Other tests and screenings after this will be to determine the anatomy of my kidneys and how the surgeon will be connecting one of them to Tim.

For me, this has become more exciting than scary. Many of my friends have connected me with people they know who have donated a kidney. I have two friends who have donated as well. The reassurance from living donors strengthens my faith. One of my friends and colleagues, Alisa Fryar, put it best when she said, “Team Hartley has a deep bench.“ God has this and we’ll be ready.

With Sarah’s wedding set for April 13, we are hoping for our surgeries to happen April 29.  I’ll keep you posted on my blog throughout this process. Your continued prayers and support are a great gift and will sustain us.

For those of you who want to read more about the decisions I made that brought me to the newsroom of the Elk City Daily News, here you go.

I grew up in Cushing and spent a great deal of time on the OSU campus for 4-H activities. My brothers attended college there. Most CHS graduates that go to college,  go to OSU. That’s certainly what I thought I would do until my brother Dennis got a job at OU and started working in student affairs and housing. As a young couple, he and Christy lived in Adams Tower student dorms before moving to their own home and having their first child.

My parents and I would visit Norman often to see them and that’s when I started thinking about going to college at OU. The scholarship offers were much better than OSU and the high school recruiters, Kenneth Conklin and Rick Hall, won me over. I decided to do something different from my brothers and become a Sooner. Of course, Dennis took a job with Eastern Montana College before I stepped foot on campus as a student. I stuck with my decision and moved into Adams Tower to go through sorority rush in August 1979.

Shocker – I’m not a girlie girl. I wasn’t sure if joining a sorority was the right path for me. There were older Cushing girls in my two top choices. I chose Alpha Phi because it was where I felt most comfortable and because one of my role models from my high school, Julie McDowell, was a member. Even on bid day, I still wasn’t sure if it was for me. As I got to know more of the women, the more I knew it was the right decision. One of my pledge sisters, Sharon Saied, and I became fast friends. We even lived together in the house our sophomore year. We remained active members and good friends during our time at OU.

When I was getting ready to graduate in May of 1983, I had three job offers. I decided to accept the offer from the Elk City Daily News, mainly because Sharon Saied and her family lived there. Her family had been so sweet to me during college and Sharon’s younger sister also became an Alpha Phi. They felt like family so I moved to the Big Elk the day after I graduated from OU.

If you fast-forward about six weeks, one of my colleagues at the newspaper who was pregnant announced she was not returning to work after having her baby. Tim Hartley, who was born in Moscow, Idaho and spent most of his early years in Washington state, had moved to Stillwater after graduating from Washington State University to “hang out” at his parents home until he found a job. His dad had accepted a position in 1981 at OSU to teach advertising in the journalism school. Tim started calling newspaper offices across the state to see if they had any openings. He spoke with the publisher, Larry Wade, in Elk City and drove out for the interview.

The office romance  you are always told to avoid ensued.

Sometimes I fall for those Facebook ads and couldn’t pass this pillow up.

We married November 24, 1984.