Talk me out of doing a very good thing

[Paul in Qatar]

In the 12 December issue of "The Week" is a condensation of an article that appeared in Philadelphia Magazine. It was entitled "What is Zell Kravinsky isn't Crazy?"

It is at:
http://www.philly.com/mld/inquirer/news/front/6601894.htm

It would appear that Mr K is a millionaire who is very charitable.

In fact is wants people to do as he did an donate a kidney. Not to a family member, just to "anybody."

He claims that about 3,500 Americans die each year from the lack of a kidney. Let's just call that about ten a day for round numbers.

Everyone has two kidneys. You can live just fine with just one. (Is that true?). You got to figure the surgery is free and pretty darn safe.

I cannot get the idea out of my mind and wonder why I SHOULDN'T do this.

In truth I almost certainly will not do it. I am scared of surgery and nobody will think less of me if I don't do it. Nobody but me of course.

So what excuse do I (or you for that matter) have for not doing this?

[robertliguori]

Er, it's your kidney?
There's no reason why you shouldn't devote your life to helping the less fortunate, but it's your life, so you're not obliged to. If you wanna, go ahead. If not, okay.

[II Gyan II]

Originally posted by Paul in Saudi

So what excuse do I (or you for that matter) have for not doing this?

Coz you never know when you might need the other one. You donate now and the other kidney fails, you will end up where the kidney donatees are.

[Paul in Qatar]

I am ready to accept the "spare kidney" idea, but suspect the argument doesn't hold up.

It would seem to me that any condition (except maybe an unusual motorcycle accident) that destroys on kidney would also do a number on the other. If i ever got the Dangerous Kidney-eating Virus, would having two really help?

Do kidney donors have ANY adverse side effects?

[Silver Serpentine]

My excuse: It's my kidney - you can have it when I die.

Oh, and surgery scares me.

And another! Hospital infections are one of the top 10 killers of Americans!

[Paul in Qatar]

Yeah, but still that does (you would have to admit) seem fairly lame against saving someone's life.

Not "maybe" or "perhaps" saving someone's life, but for sure.

The article seems to indicate you know who gets your kidney. What kind of relationship must THAT be? More than a card at Christmas, I hope.

[scr4]

Originally posted by Paul in Saudi
It would seem to me that any condition (except maybe an unusual motorcycle accident) that destroys on kidney would also do a number on the other.
How about a condition that weakens both kidnes? Wouldn't you be better off with two marginal kidneys than one?

(That's a question, not a statement.)

[Paul in Qatar]

dunno.

It seems hard to find any arguments on the Web for not doing it.

If I had a reason for being a coward, I would feel better about it.

[Qadgop the Mercotan]

Hey, I have two kids.

One has a couple of chronic illnesses, either of which could result in renal failure.

One of my kids may need one of my kidneys. So until said issue is resolved, they're staying right where they are until she needs it.

Your mileage, and situation, will doubtless vary.

Do what seems right for you.

[Rick]

There was a case in So Cal a few years back. Two guys met while fishing on the pier. Became friends. Fished together for many months.
One day it came out that one of the two guys was in renal failure and needed a kidney. His buddy said you can have one of mine. The response was well thanks but it probably won't match.
The tests were run, and son of a bitch they were a match. The surgery was done, and both guys are healthy and still fishing off that pier.
Sorry no cite it was on a TV show I saw a while back.

[Amp]

Instead of donating, maybe you could sell it. They go for what? Fifty grand a pop?

[Dread Pirate Danno]

My reason for not being a live donor to a stranger? There is a risk, albeit a small one, of complications from the surgery. I have an obligation to remain healthy for my family. Selfish? Yeah, a little, I guess. Cutting open a perfectly healthy person is just not top of the list of Good Ideas. (However, for a family member I would not hesitate to donate, but the OP was about giving one up for whoever needs it.)

I may be wrong, but it seems to me that using live donors is solving the wrong problem. We are burying countless numbers of perfectly good organs every day. I do not have any sources to cite, but we make it too difficult to get authorization to harvest organs at the time of death. I pity the doctor who has to deliver the news that John is gone, but could you please sign this form letting us take his heart and kidneys?

I have signed up to be an organ donor. They can have whatever they need when I am done with this body. It is not hard to do, but I know a lot of people who have never signed up. Not because they are against it, but just from Never Getting Around to It. The answer would seem to be to make organ donation from a deceased person be the default behavior. That is, that unless you specify that you do not authorize them to havest organs at the time of death, that they have the right to do so. This would solve the organ shortage, allow people to opt-out if their beliefs do not allow organ transplant, and not require healthy people to undergo major surgery.

Just my $0.02 ($0.01 at the after-Christmas sales)

[EddyTeddyFreddy]

by Paul in Saudi:
You got to figure the surgery is free and pretty darn safe. Free, no doubt, but safe? That's major surgery. No matter how good the surgeons, how fine the hospital, things can go wrong. Including, as AnimistDragon points out, "Hospital infections are one of the top 10 killers of Americans!" The nasty thing about hospital-acquired infections is that they tend to be especially resistant to antibiotics.

[mdf]

I don't believe I'd consider kidney donation unless the circumstances touched me closely. How close that would need to be I don't know.

You might consider bone marrow donation if you feel a need to do somethng. I don't know if S.A. has a registry, but the US version is at http://www.marrow.org/ .

-mdf

[Gary T]

Originally posted by Paul in Saudi
The article seems to indicate you know who gets your kidney. What kind of relationship must THAT be? More than a card at Christmas, I hope.
And maybe more than you would wish on an enemy. I've heard of cases where the donee fixates on the donor, intruding into his life way past his welcome. Such a situation is potentially very distressing for the donor.

[Paul in Qatar]

No I was thinking I would be the stalker.

Calling at all hours to check on my kidney. Claiming a veto on all of life's decisions.

Some great answers.

BTW is are my 45-year-old kidneys any good? Sixty-year-old? Presuming I die of something else of course.

[picunurse]

I was head nurse in a dialysis unit many years ago, so, if I may, I can address some of this. First of all there is a considerable risk with anesthesia. A nephrectomy is indeed major surgery.
Yes, there are diseases that involve just one kidney. Renal carcinoma comes to mind.
No you can't sell it. That's illegal in the US. There are a few countries where organs can be sold, but I wouldn't recomend having surgery in those countries.
You would not be able to meet the person who got your kidney. At least not immediately. The rare times meetings are arranged there's a waiting period of a year. This is so, if the organ fails, there's no guilt trip involved.
You can stop feeling guilty about not "saving a life" People with renal failure are chronicly ill. As long as the are compliant, and have dialysis on a regular schedule, their lives are not in danger. At least not specificly from the renal failure. They want transplants to live a more normal life.
Your ablity to clear toxins from your body upon losing a kidney are cut in half. Over time the remaining one ramps up, but the function will never again be 100% . However, they work so well, that you'd never notice losing 50% function.

[Paul in Qatar]

Thank you for the professional word.

[Joan of Argghh!]

Originally posted by Paul in Saudi
The article seems to indicate you know who gets your kidney. What kind of relationship must THAT be? More than a card at Christmas, I hope.

Uh, at this point, if you want to donate a kidney in the hope of meeting someone: not a good idea.

If you want to do this because you're feeling a bit guilty about a comfortable life with few worries: wait a few years, worries will come. Not a good idea.

If you think this will elevate a general sense of low self-esteem: not a good idea.

If you have a bit of a messianic-narcissistic need to save a life: join the Coast Guard.

Perhaps start small. Donate some blood. Get involved in a medical study call-for-volunteers. Work at a soup kitchen. Donate cash to an organization that fixes cleft-palates for poor children in poor countries. There are lots of ways to do good, meet great people, and/or become personally involved with someone's welfare without stepping over naturally healthy boundaries or risking so much.

Believe me, if you get involved in altruism, opportunities for giving can become a lifetime achievement, not just a once-in-a-lifetime moment.

[Paul in Qatar]

I already give blood.

Can't join the Coasties. I am a retired Army officer.

I already donate (just money) to fix cleft palates in The Phillipines. I also support the Shrine Hospitals. (Both are Masonic charities.)

Anyway, the OP does pose and interesting moral question.

[AntaresJB]

My little brother was born with one working kidney (and apparently a shriveled shell of the other one), so I'm keeping my extra one around in case he might need it someday.

[Napier]

Wow, good OP. Now I am worrying that I should be doing this too.

He asked whether 45 year old kidneys are still desireable donations. Are they? How about 46 year old ones?

How about if you tend to get stones, and have had some surgeries and a bit of damage here and there? Are they still desireable? Is it still so easy to get by on just one?

Do kidney donors have nightmares about that urban legend, where the guy wakes up in a tub of ice?

[lavenderviolet]

If you honestly feel a calling to donate an organ, you might want to look at being a living LIVER donor instead. Liver failure is a horrible way to die and has a worse prognosis than kidney failure.
Best of all, a healthy liver REGENERATES itself, so you really don't lose anything by donating some of your liver (unlike with the kidney, even though the remaining kidney does grow to take up the slack from the other one's absence).
Still, donating some of your liver is a major surgery with risk of death, and I have to admit that risk scares me off the idea of donating my liver as a live donor. I HAVE made my intentions to donate my organs after death loud and clear, so my liver's definitely up for grabs once the surgical risk to me is a no longer a concern!

If you don't want to donate, well, I'd suggest easing your conscience by making sure your family knows you want to donate your organs after death, at least. Maybe try to encourage others to agree to donate after death as well.
Really, there are valid reasons for not wanting to undergo surgery as a live person, but refusing to donate after death is a lot harder to justify (besides cultural/religious prohibitions, perhaps). A kidney or liver won't do you any good when you're brain dead, so it really is very selfish to let it rot in your corpse instead of letting it live on in somebody else.
So, maybe you can save more lives by just trying to get more people to commit to the idea of post-death donation than by giving up your kidney now?

[lavenderviolet]

If anyone is interested in learning more, here's a page with a bit of info on living donor liver transplants:
http://www.mayoclinic.org/livertransplant-rst/ldfaq.html

[racinchikki]

My excuses are that I am entirely selfish - my internal organs are mine until I die or someone in my immediate circle needs them - and that last time I had surgery - an appendectomy - I almost died from a secondary infection, and ended up spending six weeks on morphine, which is more than enough painkiller for me for the rest of my life.

[elfkin477]

How about this?

http://premium1.fosters.com/2003/news/aug%5F03/august%5F17/news/home%5F0817a.asp

[aaslatten]

It's an interesting OP.

For my part, I've had a few surgeries already, and I did not enjoy the recovery process. It can be a mess. I am not inclined to do that voluntarily again.

[js_africanus]

Originally posted by Paul in Saudi
So what excuse do I (or you for that matter) have for not doing this?
Excuse?! With all due respect, up yours.

Why don't you take an intermediate step and work to change the organ donor rules? As if some stiff is going to need either of his kidneys!

I find it hard to believe that there isn't a lot more good you can do without giving up a vital organ.

[Magiver]

Originally posted by picunurse

Your ablity to clear toxins from your body upon losing a kidney are cut in half. Over time the remaining one ramps up, but the function will never again be 100% . However, they work so well, that you'd never notice losing 50% function.
Thanks for the medical info. Are there dietary changes required for the loss of a kidney and does this affect medical certification (such as airline pilots or truck drivers)? I would imagine that salt intake and alcohol consumption would have to be ramped down.

[JerH]

One of my coworkers donated a kidney to a stranger a couple years ago. (<i>Parade</i> magazine featured him on their cover for it sometime in 2001.) As I understand it, he'd volunteered as a donor some time before, but it was several years before there was a match. He was out for a few weeks, I think, but as far as I know he recovered completely and has no long-term ill effects. He met the woman who received his kidney a couple months afterwards, and he does a lot of work getting other people to sign up for regular, after-you-die organ donations.

[Kalhoun]

Hell, I'd do it. I've done a lot worse things to myself with no positive payoff. If your remaining kidney craps out, you can always hope someone will donate one of theirs.

[SnoopyFan]

Bone marrow I'd give to anyone. Ditto with blood.

My internal organs are reserved strictly for my offspring.

What if one of your kids needs a kidney 15 years down the road and you're their only match, OP?

It's great to want to help people, but don't shoot yourself in the foot doing it. Just donate 'em when you die and help two people at the same time :)

[tanookie]

So what excuse do I (or you for that matter) have for not doing this?

I can't because I have chronic renal disease... shall I jot down names for when I end up on dialysis later in life?

However if I were healthy I'd save mine for my kids and donate them with whatever else they could use after I died.

[Mr. Goofballz]

Just a comment on the article linked in the OP. I think that man is pretty damn impressive. Not just the kidney thing but the amount of money he has donated. Every day there is another example extreme greed by the rich. Whether it be by corporations or individuals. Someone like this kind of gives you hope for the human race.
If nothing else it makes you think that maybe I could donate blood more often or something else to help. I think he raises the bar for almost everyone. Donating his kidney to a stranger, is he crazy? Perhaps - but it's a damn good kind of crazy.

[Odinoneeye]

Well considering I'm seeing a kidney doctor on a nearly monthly basis and the long term prognosis for my kidneys isn't good, I think this is a great idea.

Everyone line up and find out if you tissue match me.

Hell, I might be able to squeeze 4 or 5 extra in me just in case!

[An Arky]

I think that if you devote some time to getting people to donate their organs when they die, then you could help save many lives, not just one; plus you get to keep your kidney until a loved one needs it or you do...