Would you give up a kidney for me?
August 7, 2008
I can hear you thinking NO. But what if you did decide to give up a kidney for someone? You would only have one kidney left, which is fine, unless something goes wrong with your kidney. But what a generous gift you’d be giving: life. If someone needs your kidney, it’s because their own are no longer functioning, and they’re likely surviving on dialysis, hoping someone has chosen to be an organ donor or will choose to be a living donor.
It’s probably not the kind of thing you think about, unless you know either a donor or someone whose kidneys are failing. As it turns out, I know a living donor. When he said he was going to be in the hospital because he was donating a kidney to a friend’s daughter, I thought, “Wow, there are only 5 or 6 people to whom I’d give a kidney, and that includes my spouse, mom, dad, and sister.” And here was someone I know giving up a kidney to a person that he wasn’t even related to!
So, you make the decision. You’re going to give your kidney to someone because…your reasons will be your own. Then what? Lots of tests. Not every kidney will work for every person. You should have:
- A compatible blood type with the donor.
- Tissue antigens that are close to the recipient’s antigens.
- A healthy kidney to donate and a healthy kidney to keep.
You also need to be in good general health because this is major surgery. If you want to see pictures of the surgery, hosted on TinyPic, click the kidney bean! 
And after all that, sometimes it doesn’t work. Despite anti-rejection drugs, blood, tissue, and cross-matching, the recipient’s body can create antibodies and kill off the donated kidney. After the recipient recovers from the removal of the failed donation, there’s a waiting period for the recipient’s body to clear all the drugs before s/he can accept another donation.
For in-depth information on being a living kidney donor, see http://www.livingdonorsonline.org/kidney/kidney.htm
One Response to “Would you give up a kidney for me?”
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August 9, 2008 at 2:53 am
The generosity of live organ donors is wonderful. It’s a shame we need so many live organ donors. Americans bury or cremate 20,000 transplantable organs every year.
There is another good way to put a big dent in the organ shortage — if you don’t agree to donate your organs when you die, then you go to the back of the waiting list if you ever need an organ to live.
Giving organs first to organ donors will convince more people to register as organ donors. It will also make the organ allocation system fairer. About 50% of the organs transplanted in the United States go to people who haven’t agreed to donate their own organs when they die.
Anyone who wants to donate their organs to others who have agreed to donate theirs can join LifeSharers. LifeSharers is a non-profit network of organ donors who agree to offer their organs first to other organ donors when they die. Membership is free at http://www.lifesharers.org or by calling 1-888-ORGAN88. There is no age limit, parents can enroll their minor children, and no one is excluded due to any pre-existing medical condition.