Not this time

The donor did not pass within 90 minutes of being removed from life support, so his organs weren’t viable for transplant. Sad!

Got a call that there’s a kidney out there

Last night at midnight I’m asleep and the phone rings. It’s the kidney transplant center, calling to ask me questions to see if I qualify at this moment to be positioned to be the back up recipient for a kidney: not sick, not on antibiotics, not just back from an international trip, etc.

The kidney will be donated by a man on life support due to an accident; his family is removing him from life support today. Today they’ll test his tissue with the primary recipient, and also with mine, to see how good the match is, and they’ll check the likelihood of my body rejecting the kidney. That rejection factor can vary from month to month. Also, when the donor is removed from life support, if he doesn’t die within 90 minutes his organs aren’t viable for transplant.

I’ll get a call by this afternoon. It feels surreal, thrilling, shocking, unlikely and possible. Is this a normal day or THE day? This is the roller coaster ride for those of us needing a transplant, and our loved ones.

And lest we forget: today is this donor’s death day. His family will have one of the hardest days of their lives today. Holding him and his family in my prayers. Hopefully his/their gift of life to others will give them comfort.

Education: A Kidney Convo

A Kidney Convo provides an opportunity to hear from real kidney donors and transplant recipients. In 90 minutes people who have been through the process give incredible, relevant information and they leave time for questions in each segment. Every person I know who has attended one speaks very highly of its value. Here’s the link to the Kidney Convo calendar: https://www.nextstepnextone.com/a-kidney-convo

Inspiration

Hi there! UCHealth recently invited me to a recurring event called “A Kidney Convo,” created by “Next Step Next One,” https://www.nextstepnextone.com/a-kidney-convo. Eight of my wonderful friends attended with me, and we were all very impressed, moved, and inspired by the people who shared their kidney transplant recipient stories, their living kidney donor stories, and how their lives were changed — all of them: donors and recipients.

My kidneys are only functioning at about 20% and none of my family can be living kidney donors. I need a living kidney donor, and so do over 90,000 other Americans. Statistically about half of us will die before a transplant is available. Ooo let’s go back to the inspirational topic.

My mom’s transplant story was at age 72. Her kidneys were no longer able to clean her blood of toxins, so she had to start dialysis (or die). There’s some painful surgery that precedes dialysis, where a fistula is installed to become the port through which blood moves mechanically in/out of the body for it to be cleansed and replaced. She then had one dialysis treatment, on a Friday, and on that next Monday morning, the transplant center called her with a kidney from a young man who had been killed in a motorcycle accident. Mom lived twenty years with his kidney. She got to be here for me as an adult, and here for my kids into their adulthood.

My goals are to skip dialysis by finding a living kidney donor. To do that I need help.

There are people in the world who are called, to be a living organ donor. Here’s one of them: https://youtu.be/bzASZyfvB58 . You, Dear Reader, may be called…or by sharing my story, you may find someone who is called. May it be so! Thanks for reading, caring, and sharing.

Respectfully yours,

Ann