Along my journey I have met so many wonderful people waiting just like me for a lifesaving transplant. Fighting just to live. I always tell people...when you get down or you think life is hard just come along with me and spend a day at Vanderbilt. Look at the people in my renal clinic.Listen to their stories. Most of us are smiling through the pain because we are grateful to be alive to see another day.Behind the smiles we know what each other is going through. Or go visit a dialysis center and see what it is to sit in a chair for hours hooked up to a machine .We are fighters and survivors with a disease that ravages our bodies and leaves us exhausted. I hope and pray for all of us waiting that soon our wait will end. In April I will have the pleasure of being part of a portrait series project that a photographer friend is putting together about organ donation and those of us on the waiting list. David Y. Lee is the founder and creative director of the storytelling project and has worked very hard at encouraging people to register to be organ donors. I am looking forward to his visit and this important project. Remember...be thankful for wherever you are in life. Don't take even one second for granted. Life is a journey to be lived even when it's not perfect.