Why I'm Trying to Give Away a Kidney

My friend was born with Polycystic Kidney Disease - PKD for short.  There are 2 forms of PKD, and he has the form that is inherited from a parent who has the disease.  It doesn't skip a generation.

Polycystic kidney disease... causes numerous cysts to grow in the kidneys. These cysts... slowly replace much of the kidneys, reducing kidney function and leading to kidney failure. 

- National Kidney Foundation -

My friend's kidneys have deteriorated to 10% functionality, so medically he is in end-stage kidney failure.  There are two life-extending options open to him: dialysis, and transplantation.

Were he to go on dialysis, he'd be hooked up to machines which do what healthy kidneys do - remove waste products from the blood, maintain safe levels of sodium, potassium and phosphorous in the body, and regulate blood pressure.  He'd probably be on dialysis 3 days each week, for maybe 4 hours each time.

With transplantation, he gets a healthy kidney from a live or deceased donor.  For the rest of his life, he will be monitored by his medical team AND he will take immunosuppressive medication, which will prevent his body from rejecting the transplanted organ.

If my friend did not have a live donor, he would have been placed on the national waiting list.  More than likely he would have to begin dialysis while waiting on a kidney.

A successful kidney transplant frees patients from the need for dialysis, and is a more effective treatment for kidney failure... Transplant patients have less restrictions and a better quality of life than do dialysis patients. Most people feel better and have more energy than they did on dialysis. 

- RenalInfo.Com -

My friend's father died after 10 years of being on dialysis.  He was never on a waiting list for a donated kidney.

A transplant isn't a cure, but it's the closest thing to it.  My friend's nephrologist (kidney specialist doctor) floods him with success stories.  The transplant center that's dealing with my friend's process is one of the best in the USA, with success rates that exceed the national average.  My friend has lots of first- and second-hand testimonials from people who are living with a transplanted kidney.  These include a woman who's been living with a donated kidney for twelve years.  There's also a  Jamaican gentleman who spent hours on the phone with my friend telling him about his own experiences pre- and post-surgery.

Backed by lots of prayer and the evidence of statistics, my friend and I are optimistic that his quality of life will improve tremendously once he receives his kidney.

My kidney.

Just ONE Good Kidney

He has two bad kidneys.  I have two good kidneys.  So I decided to give him one of mine.

It wasn't as momentous a decision for me as one might think.  Being an organ or tissue donor has always been on the back of my mind.  I jokingly tell my friends that I've read WAYYYY too many issues of Readers' Digest, so I've known anecdotally that, if we're healthy, we can live with one kidney, less than 100% of our liver, etc.


Plus, I've always told everyone in my inner circle that, when I die, y'all are to harvest whatever serviceable organs and tissues there are in my body, hand them out to save sick people and promote research, then please, PLEASE burn my body.  Do NOT put my body in a casket and have people gawking at me at my funeral as my body lies there stiff and frozen.  Especially if that body is still overweight.


But I digress.  Back to the kidney story.


So now I'm officially part of the Live Donor program.  I've gone through a whole bunch of testing.  Lots of needles have gone into my veins.  So much blood has been drawn from me that I've stopped keeping track (they once drew 53.6 milliletres at one time, but who's counting?)  They've checked all my body fluids and they've flooded my body with iodine.  They've imaged my heart, chest and belly.  They've monitored how my body processes glucose.  These want to make really really, like, REALLY sure that that I'm healthy, that BOTH my kidneys are healthy, that I'm compatible with the patient, and that, up to the very LAST minute, his body will have a strong chance of accepting my kidney.  


Incredibly, there's more testing to come, plus repeated consent from me, before they actually remove one kidney from my body and put it into his.


Why am I doing this?


Because both his kidneys are bad.  Because if he doesn't have a live donor, he goes on a waiting list for a kidney.  As of April 1, 2011, there are 88,161 people waiting for a kidney.  People with his blood type may be on the waiting list for about 1,852 days.  That's a little over 5 years.  In the meantime, his kidney function would decline to the point where he would need dialysis.  Which means being hooked up to a machine that would do for his body what his kidneys can't do - several hours each day, 3 days each week, every week, until he gets that magic call that there's a kidney available for him.


Or until he dies waiting.


According to the National Kidney Foundation, about 18 people die EVERY DAY in the USA, waiting for an organ donation.


My kidney could save his life.


90.1 percent.  That's the 5-year survival rate in the USA of patients who receive LIVING kidneys from LIVE donors.  As opposed to the 81.8 percent who survive the wait and receive a kidney from a deceased donor.


He has two bad kidneys.  I have two good ones.  He can have one of mine.

Remembering Daddy

It's been roughly a year and a half since my dad passed. That was after 4 months of end-stage cancer. I've had lots of time to analyse and bring closure to the wonderfully complex relationship I had with him.

I haven't.

Instead, I've been remembering the things I loved about Harold Walton.

• Daddy had a KILLER sense of humour. Whenever I remember him, I remember a broad grin and booming, roaring laughter... that usually followed some joke at someone's expense. His conversations with Mummy were a particularly rich source of entertainment. Here's one of my favourites:

Mummy: Harold, what time is it?

Daddy: Ten to!

Mummy: Ten to what?

Daddy: Tend to yuh own BUSINESS!!!

• Daddy had a BEAUTIFUL tenor voice. And he was ALWAYS singing - a real chirper. He could harmonize on a dime. In fact, when I was a little girl, we did that all the time... we'd sing all kinds of songs together, and take turns singing the harmony. He took pride in the fact that I could sing, and would often embarrass me by commanding me to sing the high notes of "Handel's Messiah" for visitors. And during the last year of his life, he fretted that his high notes weren't quite up to scratch.

• Daddy was a bookworm. If he was quiet, the most likely reason was that his nose was buried in a book. Whether political works written by Norman Manley, or gun-toting fiction by Louis L'Amour, or the latest issue of Reader's Digest... If it could be read, Daddy was reading it. That's where he got all his 3-syllable words from... and that's how he indulged his love of language. He would often throw out some fancy word in casual conversation... like "circumnavigate"... then pause, pat himself on the back, and say, "Big wud Harold, big wud."

• The second most likely reason for Daddy being quiet, would have been that he was plotting mischief. Daddy was a prankster, and my poor mother got the brunt of it. One of his most memorable pranks: Daddy's home sick, sleeping late, and Mummy's rushing off to work... but can't find her shoes. She searches everywhere to no avail. It suddenly strikes her that Daddy's snores sound slightly staged. She shakes him. He grunts sleepily. She pushes him away from his pillow, which she lifts off the bed... and there, wrapped in newspaper and plastic bags, are Mummy's shoes.

• This part of my Dad I know the least - he was a born leader. At home he was easygoing, laidback. At work, apparently, he was an innovator, a mentor, a leader who was always ready to teach and was un-selfconscious about his own brilliance. He was a career policeman, always stationed in rural parts, and I never saw Daddy in uniform, never experienced him at work. But at his memorial service, so many of his colleagues came forward to paint the picture of a man who was universally admired. I came away from that funeral with renewed respect for my father.

Dad, the memories of you are as brilliant today as they have ever been. You are, and always have been, loved.