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

When does organ and tissue donation become an option?

Registering to be an organ donor can
help save the lives of others!

You can become an eye and/or tissue donor within 24 hours after your death. By law, all deaths in designated facilities such as hospitals, must be reported to the Human Tissue Gift Agencies in order for them to determine suitability for donation. Your medical records will be reviewed and appropriate health care professionals involved in your care will be interviewed to determine suitability for donation.

If it is determined that you are suitable to be a donor, a tissue transplant coordinator or eye bank technician will contact your family to discuss with them the opportunity to honour your wishes. Having your wishes readily accessible to the Human Tissue Gift Agencies by recording them in the online donor registry, will help the tissue and eye bank staff in the donation discussion with your family.

However, if no documented evidence of your wishes can be found and you are a suitable candidate for donation, your family will still be contacted so that they can make a direction on your behalf.

Register at www.signupforlife.ca

To be an organ donor you must reach brain death. Most organ donors suffer a stroke or bleeding in the brain or have an accident or head trauma that causes the brain death. When a person in hospital is declared brain dead, or is progressing toward brain death, the intensive care medical team will raise the possibility of donation with the family. Sometimes the family brings up the topic of donation themselves.

If the family is interested, a member of the Transplant Manitoba – Gift of Life team will come to speak with them. The family is given time to make a decision. If they agree to donation, there is some paperwork to confirm the donation and which organs may be retrieved.

In some cases, you may be eligible to be an organ, tissue, and eye donor. If this is the case, all three human tissue gift agencies are involved.