I begin to think of the story that was handed to me as a poisoned chalice. I am, in part, supportive of the Jesus Christians’ scheme. But I feel queasy about the decision Susan has to make, and I feel queasy about Casey. He may be saving a life, but he’s only twenty-three, has been a follower for just a year, and still hasn’t told his mother. I e-mail Dave to suggest Casey should be given a cooling-off period—perhaps two months away from the group—before the operation.
I’m surprised to receive a friendly response.
“Thanks for being so frank,” writes Dave. “How about we give Casey a couple of months away from the group to cool off?”
I e-mail back to ask if he’s serious about this. He responds a few days later. Events have moved on, he says. Casey has now told his mother everything, and she has fully endorsed his decision: “Now that Casey’s mother is in agreement, there really should be no objection from anyone else. Like, he’s almost 24, has lived on his own for several years, has covered his body with tattoos and body-piercings without objections from his parents, and now that he has finally got his life together, he wants to do something really good with it by offering a kidney. If his parents are happy with it, then I don’t see any reason why we should tell him to run away and think about it.”
At the end of February, the video diary I asked Robin and Casey to film arrives. It is extraordinarily moving and vivid. It begins with them running at a track in Dallas. They run each morning. This is the day before they fly to Minneapolis. The thing that strikes me most is their smiles. Robin, especially, is always smiling.
Now Robin and Casey are having a snowball fight outside the hospital. Now they’re in twin beds at a Days Inn next to the hospital. Robin addresses the camera: “I’m two days away from donating a kidney to someone I’ve never met before. The reason I’m doing this comes from my personal belief in God. I guess there are a few hard questions—you’re probably wondering if I’ve thought about them. What happens if I donate a kidney to someone and it gets rejected? Obviously, I wouldn’t feel very happy about that. However, part of the idea of being an altruistic donor is that it’s a pure act of love. It’s like a donation to the human race.”
The camera clicks off.
It clicks back on again. Robin is still smiling. “Most kidney donations come from cadavers,” he says. “The recipient has to race in as quickly as possible. They all wear beepers. As soon as they’re beeped, they race to the hospital. The working life expectancy of a kidney harvested from a dead person is ten years, whereas a kidney from a live donor lasts at least twenty years. Twenty years is a long time. That’s a lease on life.”
Now they are at the hospital, having last-minute electrocardiograms and chest X-rays. Casey strips to his waist. “What’s this 777 mean?” asks the nurse, pointing to one of Casey’s many tattoos.
“It’s supposed to be the Lord’s number,” says Casey. “The opposite of 666.” He laughs. “I was too young to think about what I was doing.”
The nurse says, “You’re a brave man, Casey.”
Now, suddenly, it is the night before the operation. Robin and Casey are back at the hotel, preparing their superlaxative. “So when the surgeons get in there and move our guts around, there won’t be any accidents,” Robin explains. The superlaxative is called GoLYTELY (“Go Lightly”).
They need to drink half a gallon, one glass every ten minutes, “until our watery stool is clear and free of solid matter,” says Robin. It’s pineapple-flavored. They say “Cheers!” and start drinking.
Casey screws up his face. “It’s really bad,” he says.
“We’ll get there, buddy,” says Robin. He pats Casey lightly on the knee.
Casey takes another sip. “I feel like I’m defiling myself,” he says.
Now it’s 5:20 a.m. on February 21, 2002. “We should be leaving,” says Robin. “Sounds like Casey’s still in the shower. I’m feeling a bit dehydrated from the diarrhea. I guess they could put me on an IV or something. I got a call last night from the doctor. He said I have an unusual structure. He said there’s a chance they’ll have to go in through the back, which means it’s a longer and more difficult recovery. They may have to remove one of the ribs for access.”
“How do you feel about that?” asks Christine, Robin’s wife, from behind the camera. Christine is also a Jesus Christian.
“OK, I guess,” replies Robin.
Casey pops his head around the bathroom door and grins. Now they head off, in the snow and the dawn, toward their operations. Now they are in the pre-op room.
“I’m debating whether to keep my eyes open when they put the knockout drug into me,” says Casey.
He’s sitting on a chair, his body covered in a tight stocking, like a leotard. “I keep trying to focus on the spiritual side of this,” says Casey. “The motivation behind the donation. The benefits of it. Yeah. I’m trying to stay in touch with the One who’s making it all possible.”
“Do you have any doubts?” asks Christine.
“I’m just, uh, trying to stay open to what God wants,” says Casey.
Now, from his bed in the pre-op room, Casey tries to phone his mother to tell her that he’s about to go into surgery. But she’s not there. The phone just rings out. Casey hangs up.
Now the hospital porters arrive. There are hugs from Christine. Robin and Casey are wheeled away toward the operating room. The camera clicks off. When it comes back on again, Casey and Robin are just beginning to stir from the anesthetic. Casey is mumbling. Christine is stroking his arm. There are drips, and bandages cover their stomachs. The camera clicks off.
“I’m feeling very dizzy and nauseous,” says Casey—his voice is hazy, as if he’s still in a dream. It is the next morning. “I just vomited up some gastric juice or something. You wanna come and have a look at my wound? The pain medication is making it really itchy. I keep scratching. You want to see me press my morphine button? Ah!”
“That’s my buddy,” says Robin. The camera clicks off.
The days progress. Casey tries walking, but he has to sit down again. His colon is twisted from the operation. For a while he lies under the duvet cover. He says he doesn’t want to talk to anyone, and he wants Christine to stop filming him. He says he wishes he hadn’t done it.
“I keep asking myself, ‘Why did I donate?’” he says. “I was trying to do something good and this pain is what I get for it. Maybe God is having me go through this trial to make me feel more sensitive to other people who are uncomfortable and in pain. I have to be careful not to become hateful or bitter. That’s what I’m working on now.”
The next day, Casey and Robin are wheeled out into the sunshine. “We heard a little bit about the recipients today,” says Robin. “My kidney went to a fifty-nine-year-old man who’s been a diabetic all his life. So the fact that he’s fifty-nine and he hasn’t needed a transplant until now is an indication that he’s been looking after himself. Apparently, it’s going really well for him. The kidney began producing urine straightaway. Tell them about your recipient, Casey.”
Casey seems happier today.
“My recipient was a fifty-three-year-old woman who had been on dialysis for five years,” he says. “Her time was nearly up. Hopefully, she doesn’t have to worry about that anymore.” Then he adds, “A lot of people pray to God for a miracle specifically relating to kidney failure, and all it takes is someone to step forward and say, ‘I’ll do it.’ That’s the miracle. That willingness to step forward. That’s God’s miracle. We don’t have to sit around waiting for God to do all the work. He’s waiting for us to do something.”
“We can make a miracle happen,” says Robin.
• • •
ON MARCH 15, I receive an e-mail from Dave McKay. He’s decided to kill off Anita. He realized that attempting to control the tabloids and the anticult groups was bound to backfire.
“I know we’re going to cop to it sometime. We just wanted to have control over when we cop to it. I just wanted to show how adept the media is at turning something good into something evil.”