Featured Testimonial
A Gift of Life and Love


Yogi Bhajan

"We have the Birthright to be Beautiful,
Bountiful and Blissful." Yogi Bhajan

A Friend's Letter

April 6, 2005
New York, NY

With deepest gratitude I, Sat Jivan Singh, want to thank you for all your kind prayers and best wishes during and following the surgeries of my sister Kay and I.

Sat Jivan Singh and his sister, Kay
Click photo for a special message!

The outpouring of love and kindness from everyone has been overwhelming. Your prayers made the transplant successful and are making our recovery much easier. The surgery was a complete success. Kay's new kidney began functioning almost immediately and she is feeling better than she has in many years. I kept telling her that she had been "down" so long she had forgotten what "up" was like and she now agrees. It is a blessing beyond words to see her looking healthy, bright and shiny with so much energy and a good appetite. Her color went from gray to pink and she says she wakes up early every day full of energy and ready to meditate! Her doctor said her kidney tests showed that it was functioning as well as his.

I am still a bit sore and my midsection is still slightly swollen and looks like a bicycle ran over it, but I feel pretty good considering what I've been through. I have begun returning to work on a limited basis - I can make it through about 2/3s of a normal workday. However, when I get tired, I can't do my usual "Keep Up" kind of thing. I have to stop and rest. Naps, which I have never taken, have become more the norm as my single kidney learns to take over the whole process. I walk as much as I can during the day, usually about a mile or so. It gets the lymphatic system moving and helps work out the soreness. My energy level overall has been getting better, too.

The surgery was a marvel of modern medical technique. The care we received at the University of Alabama Birmingham Medical Center was terrific. They took my kidney out just above my navel. I had no idea that it would come out the front. I was expecting the flank but the doctor used a technique through the navel. I should have expected the unexpected, but it was a marvel of medial science that it was so minimally invasive. What's amazing is that the primary incision was made vertically above and around my navel and is only about 4 inches long. There are four other 1⁄2 inch incisions at intervals around my torso where the camera and other tools were inserted and that's it.

My Doctor, Dr. Rizk El Galley, developed a surgical device and technique that allowed him to take out my right kidney laparoscopically. My operation was the 35th time the operation had been performed removing the right kidney laparoscopically. He was able to remove the kidney without cutting any muscles, which means my recovery-time should be shorter than if he had to take it out the old-fashioned way with a cut from front to back through muscle. However, because he had to separate the muscles above and below my navel point in order to remove the kidney he has restricted my physical activities for the next three months. I am told that for the next 3 months while the muscles knit back together I will have to refrain from lifting anything heavier than 10 pounds, doing any strenuous yoga and playing golf. But this is a very small price to pay for the blessing of giving my little sister a new kidney and a new lease on life.

My surgery began on Tuesday March 8th at 7:30 a.m. and took between 3 and 4 hours. I was completely out of it that whole day. Sat Jivan Kaur said I looked pretty beat up when she saw me - I don't really remember. I recovered in the hospital the next 2 days and was released on Friday afternoon to the University Townhouses across the street from the hospital. I was there for about a week. I have been getting better each day since. While recovery has not been without a hitch, it has been steady. We stayed in Alabama long enough to see my sister begin to get up and around and feel the surge of energy from her new kidney. Seeing Kay do so well is all that's necessary to know that a miracle has taken place in our lives. I am so grateful that I could do this for her. I spent the early part of my life as a taker. Kay was always a giver. It was only right that I be able to give to her this time. I have had to work very hard to become a giver in life. It didn't come naturally to me. I have tried to use both my legal training and my teaching yoga to give to people. And this has always been rewarding and satisfying. But nothing I have ever done has been as satisfying or moving as giving a kidney to my sister. This is one of the most transcendent things I have thus far done in my life. Giving her the gift of life was truly sublime.

Before I left Birmingham my sister and I were photographed in our UAB Kidney Donor and Kidney Recipient tee shirts and I admit to a large wave of emotion when I read the bottom line "Gift of Life." It hit me that I really had given my sister the gift of life and I got pretty choked up, crying my way through lunch. But I was able to lighten things up when my sister said that she couldn't begin to thank me enough and I jokingly said, "Oh, go ahead and give it a try!" We laughed through our tears.

I really hated leaving her in Birmingham, but we left Thursday evening the 17th to return to New York City where I continue my recuperation. It is wonderful to be back home. New York looked so magical as we flew over it on our way into La Guardia. It was crystal clear as we flew in the night of St. Patrick's Day and the Empire State Building and several other buildings were lit up green making NYC seem like the Emerald City. I thought I would recover a little more quickly than I have but it will just take a little more time for my body to adjust to having one kidney and to heal. My energy goes up and down. I made a promise to Sat Jivan Kaur that it would be her, not me that determines when I was ready to go back to work and teaching. I taught my first yoga class on Monday night without problem. My habit has been to just push through anytime I feel tired. I can't do this any more, at least not for a long time. My body needs time to adjust to one kidney. If I do too much one day I feel it the next. So, when Sat Jivan Kaur says take a break I have to stop.

I can't express the amount of gratitude and love I feel for my sweet wife Sat Jivan Kaur. She was by my side during the whole process and I know it was actually harder on her than on me in many ways. I at least got morphine for my pain! She stood tall through it all, and I couldn't have made it without her. All she went through: waiting during the long surgery; seeing me so beat-up afterward; caring for me through my pain; being there while I moaned and groaned and griped. She is the Rock of Gibraltar and I love her deeply. And I am very grateful to her.

And I love you all deeply, too. I am just so grateful to you for your outpouring of love and kindness. Thank you so much for everything, especially for all your sweet thoughts and prayers. They have meant so much. Believe me, my whole family has felt them. I hope you will keep them up for just a bit longer through the remainder of our recuperation and healing and Kay's adjustment to all the medication she is on. Her swift recovery allowed her to leave Birmingham for her home on Wednesday the 30th. She will return to Birmingham once a week for a month and then every other week thereafter for a while as her medication and progress are monitored.

God bless you. You are in my prayers. Oh, and if you would like to see my sister's web site for the operation go to http://www.caringbridge.com and choose "Visit" then in the "Directory" pull down choose "al" and type in "rickman" to see our picture in our Donor/Recipient T-Shirts and the comments of my nephew and Kay's son, Charlie, who is so funny and entered regular updates during the week of our surgery. Click on "Read Journal History" and read it from the bottom up for a chronological record of our surgeries. You should get a chuckle.

http://www.caringbridge.org/al/rickman

With my deepest gratitude and love,

Sat Jivan Singh --

Editor's note: Sat Jivan Singh, 2012.