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Wednesday, February 16, 2022

A Gift of Life: Living Donors Save Lives

In the Fall of 2019, a brave young man gave his mother a very personal gift…and saved her life.

At the age of twenty-seven, this young man donated one of his kidneys to his 61-year-old mother, whose own kidneys were failing and whose health was fading rapidly.

“I only had one (kidney) that was working, and it wasn’t working very well,” his mother said. “Everyone at the hospital … the doctors, nurses … everyone said they were so impressed by his willingness to do this for me.” (O’Brien, M. (2019)

That was me, on September 17, 2019, a week after the surgery that transplanted a healthy kidney from my son to me.

I tried to talk him out of it. I told him I didn’t want him to suffer if his one kidney failed him. His answer? If he ever needs another kidney, as a previous donor, he will go to the top of the list. Besides, he insisted, it was better than getting one from a deceased person and definitively better than waiting five years or more in the hope of getting one from a stranger.

According to statistics from UNOS (2022), organ transplants have increased over the last several years. Kidney transplants alone account for 29,669 transplants in 2021, an increase of 8.1% over 2020. More than 6500 of those donations were from live donors. Even with these numbers, however, more than 100,000 patients still waiting on the list for a kidney for as long as five to ten years.

Live kidney transplant is best for the patient, according to my surgeon, Dr. Marc Garfinkel, Associate Professor in the Department of Surgery at SIU School of Medicine. He is fellowship-trained in liver, kidney, and pancreas transplantation (https://www.siumed.edu/marc-garfinkel ).

Statistics show that transplant patients who receive a kidney from a live donor survive longer and have fewer issues than with one from a deceased donor.

One of the biggest reasons for receiving a kidney from a live person is that the kidney is healthier and stronger than one from a deceased person. Another benefit is that the recipient doesn’t have to wait for years on a waiting list to get the transplant.

“Receiving a kidney from a living donor means receiving the healthiest organ possible,” Dr. Dunn, a University of Minnesota Health Transplant Surgeon, said (2017). This is because the donor must first go through a comprehensive workup before they are approved to go through the surgery. They are checked for any possible physical or mental issues; they also undergo extensive testing to check their kidney function and compatibility (blood type, tissue type, etc.)

So that day, when my son and I sat in the conference room in the Baylis Building in Springfield, Illinois across the street from Springfield Memorial Hospital, and listened to the nurses and the doctors explain the procedures for surgery, the second they mentioned the benefits of live donation, Joshua made up his mind to donate to me, and there was nothing I could do to talk him out of it.

"It was probably one of the most important things I could do with my life," Joshua said in an interview with WAND-TV reporter Madison O’Brien. "Once I figured out I'd probably be approved to do it, I just decided that it was the right thing to do." (“Memorial Medical Center completes 1,000th kidney ...”) It wasn't really something to debate about." (2019)

The transplant team at Memorial was quite impressed with Joshua’s decision, as were our family members and friends.

 

LIVE DONORS NEEDED

Recently I watched a video about a doctor and her team who started a program called “The Giving Chain.” It involved several patients who needed a kidney but had no one who was compatible (different blood type, not healthy enough, etc.) to donate to them. This team worked tirelessly until they found family members and friends of the patients to donate a kidney to another patient they were compatible with. At the time of the report (July 3, 2014) a “chain” of seven recipients and their willing but anonymous donors were going into surgery; each donor was giving life to a stranger, but they were happy to do it.

“We are anxious, all of us are, to hear the story of our recipient,” said Pastor Derek Lambert, one of the donors. “I don’t know if this is perhaps a young mother who’s feared leaving her kids, or a young man who is unable to provide for the needs of his family and this would give these types of individuals a new lease on life.” (“Strangers Donate Kidneys to Keep Country's Longest Donor ...”) (Brown, 2014)

This chain of patients and donors was the marvelous idea of Dr. Jayme Locke, director of the Incompatible Kidney Transplant Program at the University of Alabama at Birmingham Medical Center (2014). A friend or family member of each of the patients needing a kidney donated one of their kidneys to another patient – a stranger on Dr. Locke’s list. The donors and recipients didn’t know each other and didn’t meet until after the procedures had been done.

“How fortunate I am to have just witnessed another miracle, because to me that’s what these are, to the patients that’s what this is," she said. "You look into people’s eyes, and you see hope that wasn't there before. You see the promise of a future they weren't sure they were going to have. This is life-changing and life-saving and you see that. …It is so humbling to be able to be a part of this and be able to help people really realize the gift of life.” (Ibid.)

Other transplant hospitals have followed suit including Memorial Hospital in Springfield, Illinois, which conducted its first “chain” in 2018, just over a year before my surgery. If this trend continues, hundreds, possibly thousands more kidney patients can receive the gift of life. All it takes is donors healthy enough and willing to save another life.

ARE THERE MORE PEOPLE OUT THERE WILLING TO BE KIDNEY DONORS?

I realize not everyone is healthy enough to give away a kidney. Not everyone can afford to take the time off from work to recover after surgery. But there are lots of people out there, all over the world, who can physically qualify to donate a kidney to someone who is in desperate need, who has been waiting on that list for a long time; someone who, without that donor, won’t make it before they are at the top of the list and a compatible deceased donor is found.

Almost three years ago, my son gave me the gift of life. If he hadn’t, I would still be on that list IF I were still here at all.

GIVE A PART OF YOURSELF TO SAVE A LIFE. IT’S THE RIGHT THING TO DO, AND YOU WILL BE GREATLY BLESSED FOR IT!!

Sources:

Brown, E (2014); Strangers Donate Kidneys to Keep Country's Longest Donor Chain Going; https://abcnews.go.com/Health/strangers-donate-kidneys-countrys-longest-donor-chain/story?id=24385817

Dunn, MD (2017); https://www.mhealth.org/childrens/blog/2017/july-2017/why-do-living-donor-kidney-transplants-offer-better-outcomes

O’Brien, M. (2019); https://www.wandtv.com/news/memorial-medical-center-completes-1-000th-kidney-transplant/article_d60e3b38-d974-11e9-bbf8-1fc56031f3e6.html

United Network for Organ Sharing, a nonprofit 501(c)(3) organization. 2022; https://unos.org/

 Here are the links to the interviews within the first month after the surgery:

WAND Springfield, IL

 https://www.wandtv.com/news/memorial-medical-center-completes-1-000th-kidney-transplant/article_d60e3b38-d974-11e9-bbf8-1fc56031f3e6.html

The BenGil post article
https://www.thebengilpost.com/memorial-medical-center-completes-1000th-kidney-transplant  

 A phone interview conducted by Dean Olson of the State Journal-Register in Springfield, IL.
https://www.sj-r.com/story/lifestyle/health-fitness/2019/09/23/memorial-program-s-1-000th/2718140007/

 

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