Poetry by Shawn Aveningo

In July of 2007 Shawn Aveningo received a call from her dad, and she knew something was wrong. He was talking to her about a tick bite he got while golfing and strange symptoms that just wouldn’t go away. A month later, they found out he had Renal Carcinoma (Kidney Cancer) on his one remaining kidney.

In her first conversation with her father’s doctor after his surgery she asked if she could donate a kidney to her dad. They had to wait at least two years before a transplant would be considered. After months of tests for both Shawn and her father, a successful kidney transplant took place on November 16, 2009.

It’s been a tremendously rewarding experience but a journey full of emotions ranging from elation, to fear, impatience, frustration, fear and back to elation again. In order to manage some of these feelings, she found comfort in one of her favorite hobbies…writing poetry.