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?”
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.
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?
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.
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)
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.
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/ .
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.
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.
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.