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
