I Have This Extra Kidney I'm Not Using...

In my previous post I talked about my thoughts of altruistic compassion.  Helping people you know is important.  Helping people you don’t is at least equally important.  I feel  need to disclose that I admire someone who doesn’t harm another.  I admire them more when they help others in need, regardless of any benefit to themselves.  A lot of people become part of an awareness group once they have been affected by it, and this is a good thing.  Volunteering time and money is a great form of compassion.  Some people even become an advocate for something they know is wrong, but haven’t experienced it.  I admire these people even more so.  A friend of mine is an advocate for human trafficking.  I’m pretty sure this person hadn’t experienced this first hand, but they know it’s wrong and they don’t want it to happen anymore.

I like volunteering, but I don’t do it often enough.  I give money to charities, give blood, and I’ve done the whole habitat for humanity.  I find myself questioning some of these acts of compassion though, wondering if I’m actually making an impact, or just prolonging the demise.  For instance, I could volunteer at a soup kitchen, and help feed the homeless.  At the end of the day, they are still homeless.  Hell, at the end of the year they are still homeless.  It’s good to help in any way possible, but I feel I could be doing more for the greater good of our global society.

While philosophizing on the impact of compassion, I started looking at unique ways to volunteer.  I then discovered, and ultimately decided that I would be a living donor.

A living donor is one who donates part or all of an organ to someone else.  Giving blood is a form of living donation, but for the most part it includes bone marrow, liver and kidneys.  For the past couple of months I have been going through the process of being matched for kidney donation for a fellow out in California.  I have never met this person before, but that was kind of the point.  I had one condition: This person must be a good person, and one that has helped and will continue to help others.  The idea is that my donation is a conduit to continued compassion on the recipients’ behalf.  I improve his quality of life in order for him to maintain a positive influence to those around him.

The process has been interesting.  At first I created a profile on a message board for living donors and recipients.  I was flooded with invitations to be matched as a kidney donor for many different people.  I quickly realized that I could not handle responding to so many people, telling them that I will not be donating a kidney to them.  It sounded too much like “sorry, but you’ll just have to risk death a little bit longer, because you aren’t good enough for my kidney”.  It’s like signing a death pact – giving so many people hope and then stripping it away.  Before I changed my profile to “private” I was contacted by one person that met my conditions, and better yet this was someone on the recipients’ behalf – The recipient didn’t even want to ask a living donor to get tested.  He is a good person in his community, and didn’t want or expect someone to go through the process of being a living donor for him.  This, I decided, is the kind of person who deserves my kidney.

So far I have talked to two social workers and given nine vials of blood to determine tissue typing – they needed to make sure that once my kidney was transplanted, his body wouldn’t reject it.  Once it was confirmed that my parts would work in his make and model, we scheduled the remaining tests.  The next step is to give more blood to ensure that I do not possess pretty much every disease known to man.  There are like 30 things they are testing.  On top of that, I need an EKG, chest X-Ray, physical, 24 hour urine collection for a urinalysis, and a CT scan.  There may be others, but the bottom line is, if there is a disease in me somewhere, they are going to find it before I pass it on to the recipient.  I fly out to California to meet with a psychologist in November, and to perform the CT scan.  Once all that clears, the OR can be scheduled for the transplant about four weeks from then.  As it is planned, by Christmas time I should have one less kidney in my body – seems like a perfectly normal way to lose some weight.

I had one reservation for actually going through this process.  I had thought “What if a family member or friend needs it later on in life”?  I realized that this is a big “What If”.  The chances of knowing someone with kidney disease is not that great, and it becomes even smaller when you consider all of the variables needed to be a match.  I then concluded that if this actually did happen, I can count on others to be a living donor.

I really did not focus, and continue not to focus, on the effect this will have on me.  Since I am donating altruistically, meaning I do not know the recipient, I have had to talk to social workers, and eventually a psychologist to ensure that I am mentally prepared for the surgery and for life after the surgery.  I’m not really concerned, to tell you the truth.  For one, life after surgery is about the same with one kidney as it is with two.  I won’t be able to smoke or play professional football, but I think I can get by.  Another reason, it’s not about me more than it’s about helping others through helping one.  Consider this: if you went back in time and had the opportunity to jump in front of the bullet for MLK, sacrificing your life for that of a civil rights hero, would you?  Given the chance, my answer would be a swift “Yes”.  We don’t survive as individuals, and there is not enough selfless acts done for the greater good of mankind.

I’m not saying I am giving my life for someone else, but I am aware and understand that I am risking it.  However small the risk, it is still evident.  One statistic shows that it is riskier to be born than it is to donate a kidney.  When people ask me why I am doing it, I tell them I have an extra kidney I’m not using, and it’s much more beneficial for someone else to have it than continue incubate it for a “What If”.  That’s the simple version.  A much simpler version is that it seemed like the right thing to do. 

I’m not writing this because I expect others to follow suit and start donating a bunch of kidneys.  I would only suggest challenging yourself to do good for others, in hopes of compounding compassion through your acts of kindness.  I debated telling people other than friends and family, but then realized that the more people see an act of kindness, the more willing they are to pay it forward.  I think that the world needs more of that.  I also did this in mass notice, as telling each person individually would be a gigantic effort.

TL;DR: I have this extra kidney I’m not using, and will be donating it because I want to, and it seems like the right thing to do.