Living Kidney Donors Are Among The Most Interesting People I Know

Allison Fass wrote about a speaker she saw in March who gave a talk on the characteristics of really interesting people. Here’s the list:

Reading this and Fass’ take on what those characteristics mean, I immediately think of living kidney donors. This group of people has these traits in buckets. Caring and generous are a given, of course—can you think of a more generous or caring act than to donate an organ? How do they meet the other eight criteria though? Here’s my take.

Adventurous
A living donor goes through months of medical tests and evaluations before they are deemed suitable to donate. Some of these tests could turn the stomachs of even the toughest folks. Have you ever been game to collect your urine and poop and carry it proudly to a clinic for evaluation? Have you ever been so fortunate as to see a bubble form on your arm right before your eyes where you’ve been poked for a Tuberculosis test?

Active
Donors need to be actively engaged in their physical and mental health. Candidates need to demonstrate that not only can their body survive without its spare filter, but that they are also in a good place to handle the stress of going through the testing and facing major surgery.

Strange
It’s a little unique to be walking around with only one kidney, but could you do it having given yours to a complete stranger? Through the science of living kidney donor paired exchanges, an exceptionally generous person can step forward to donate a kidney completely anonymously to whoever is on the waitlist that is a match. These “good Samaritans” are strangely awesome.

Humble
The amazing and beautiful thing about living donors is how quickly they will tell you that they don’t feel like heroes. These donors shrug the label off and will tell you that they would donate all over again if they could.

Daring
Giving up a kidney is no small matter, even for the healthiest person. Today’s donation surgeries can be performed laparoscopically which minimizes scarring and recovery time but this is still major surgery. Donors must then face a life knowing that even though they have been deemed likely to live a normal, healthy life with one kidney, if that one were to ever go down on them, they would be in the same serious trouble their recipient was in. It’s a decision that cannot be taken lightly.

Original
Some patients waiting for a kidney face dismal statistics about the likelihood of finding a match due to their blood type, antibodies and genetic makeup. But it can happen that a person who is 98% sensitized—that is, they would only find a match with 2% of the world’s population—gets a match. Often this happens with the help of the living donor paired exchange system or highly sensitized patient registries. The donors who match these patients certainly have a unique physical composition making them one in more than a million.

Brave
Every surgery comes with risk. Facing those risks takes great courage even when the motivator is to improve the life of a loved one.

Self-Assured
Donors will often consult their family and friends when deciding whether or not to donate. Some will be supportive of the idea, some may be cautious. Donors know in their hearts and minds what is right for them. They go into the OR alone believing that at the end of it all they will be able to get themselves back on their feet and back into life or at least that they will be able to handle whatever challenges life may throw at them on the other side.

How can you find one of these incredibly interesting people to have a conversation with? Kidney donors don’t stick out in public in any way, except for a small scar around the bikini line. You could go around looking for these markings at the beach or pool parties and then open a conversation with “I see your scar there, you must have great creatine levels”, but it’s not recommended. If you think you’re interesting though, you may just be a good candidate for donating yourself.

Jillian Barrott is the Communications Coordinator for Transplant Manitoba – Gift of Life Program and SignUpForLife.ca. She took up cycling with encouragement from a Transplant Manitoba volunteer who can ride 40km in a day and is living on a donated kidney he received 35 years ago.
To learn more about organ donation or being a living kidney donor:
www.transplantmanitoba.cawww.signupforlife.caLook for us on Facebook and follow us on Twitter
www.facebook.com/transplantmanitoba@TransplantMB

Transplant Manitoba HSC Bake Sale

Happy Monday everyone! Last Friday I took in a social media workshop and now my brain is just tingling with ideas. My favourite takeaway from the afternoon was to ask the question, what if? It’s a simple thought starter, but it can lead to an interesting world of possibility if you can let yourself forget about all the roadblocks and barriers for a moment. What if every Manitoban registered on SignUpForLife.ca? What if every family approached about organ donation said, yes, of course!  Why wouldn’t we? What if there was no shortage of organs for transplant and all our patients received their transplants within a year of being listed? What would that version of Manitoba look like?

Last Thursday I found out what would happen if I put out a table full of sweet treats and asked passersby to purchase them in support of Transplant Manitoba. Transplant Manitoba’s first ever bake sale was a great success, raising $540 for our trust fund. The cookies, muffins, cupcakes and squares were all hits. Thank you everyone who generously donated treats for our table and volunteered their help with assembling plates and standing at the table. I had no idea how much baking would come in and I was so amazed and wowed by the generosity.

View our photo stream on Flickr Here

Coming up this month we will be talking kidney transplants on CJOB with Richard Cloutier. We are so pleased to join Richard’s show on March 6 at 10am. Guests will be Dr. David Rush, Helen Ferens (donor) and her sister Julia Kuriewicz (recipient).

In late-March I will be travelling in Manitoba for presentations to spread the word about organ donation and the online registry. One of those trip will be to Winkler, MB where I will visit a junior high school. This trip was prompted by a letter written by a lovely grade 8 student who chose to do an independent research project on organ donation. When I offered a visit to the school I got the most enthusiastic response I’ve ever had to a presentation pitch. “ I can't express just how excited Susie was over the prospect of you coming to speak about Organ Transplants, her research topic,” the teacher told me. “You made my day!” What if it was that easy to make someone’s day, every day?

If you play the what if game and come up with an interesting idea for raising awareness or funding, let me know!

Dates to Note:

Wednesday, March 6 – Kidney Transplant Pair and Dr. Rush on Richard Cloutier show

April 21 – 27 NOTDAW

April 23 – HSC Awareness Table

April 25 – St. Boniface Awareness Table

Tree of Life Ceremony – Monday, June 17, 2013. Yes, we’ve moved it one month later this year

Sign Up For Life!

Sign Up For Life (signupforlife.ca) is an online registery where Manitobans can record their wishes to be an organ/and or tissue donor after death.

Many people have a donor card, but you should also register online.  A donor card is just a piece of paper that indicates your wish to be a donor.  Because most people keep their cards in their wallets and often do not come to hospitals with the card on them, it may not be there with the information is neede.  This means your decision to donate is only known to the family and friends you've shared it with.  By registering your intent to donate, you ensure that your decision is recorded and can be made available to your loved ones when they need to know.

Organ donation saves and improves the quality of life for thousands of Canadians, like you, every day.  We currently do not have enough donors to meet the needs for transplants.  One person dies while waiting for a transplant ever 36 hours.  Why not give these people a second chance?

Not only does registering your wishes to be an organ and/or tissue donor help someone else, it helps your family as well.  When you register your donation wishes, this information is recorded and stored in a Manitoba ehealth database and will be made available to your family at the right time, ensuring that your donation decision is known and respected.  By making your donation decision today, you relieve your family of the burden to make this decision on your behalf .

Be a hero.  Be an organ and tissue donor.