My family is stoic when it comes to handling emotional stress. Anytime we scraped our knee or fell off our bike, we were quickly distracted and told not to cry, be tough, and get over it. Therefore, when I faced the decision of being a kidney donor for my father last year, I thought I would just handle it like most other emotional situations. I would keep a cool head, methodically weigh all of my options, and promptly handle all the necessary medical appointments. What truly happened was completely unexpected. My first online exploration was a little bit shocking. My web clicks took me to images that illustrated simple educational diagrams and to documentaries about black market organ donations. I even found pictures of children’s fluffy toy organs including a cute stuffed kidney with a smile stitched on it. I made my way to some resources that were overly skeptical and instructed any kidney donor to be cautious and question everything the medical community said. Then I saw the image of an operating room with masked and gloved doctors in their hospital green scrubs hovered over a hole in a sheet with stainless steel objects all clung to something here and there, and that’s when it hit me – this is real. I am actually going to have a doctor slice me open with a scalpel and remove one of my kidneys! I immediately closed the browser and scooted my chair back from the computer. I have never had a life threatening injury before, unlike my brother who we tease is like a cat with nine lives. He has been in more near death accidents than I can remember. He needed stitches on his head when he was four, he broke his arm when he was thirteen, he survived a car accident at eighteen, but came away without his gall bladder, and he survived a 40ft drop from a scaffold and needed a new hip. I freak out when I get a sticker bur in my foot. Now I am about to sign a piece of paper to allow a surgeon to remove one of my kidneys. It went against all