If you’re looking for information about being a kidney donor, a very useful resource launched last week from Living Donation California. 
Everything you need to know about becoming a kidney donor is presented in a well-organized and easy to understand format. There are over a half-dozen educational videos plus living donor stories, tips on how to start your donation process, the risks involved, post-surgical recovery, insurance, a survey which helps you evaluate your eligibility to donate, and links to California transplant centers and National donor resources.
Tag Archives: kidney donation
Want to be a Kidney Donor?
Filed under Kidney Donation, Kidney Transplant
Australia To Compensate Living Donors
In Australia, “the cost of dialysis to society over giving someone a kidney transplant is about $80,000 a year,” says Transplant Australia chief executive officer Chris Thomas. 
In a bid to ease the financial burdens on transplant donor-patients, to lower the extra costs, and to shorten the Australian wait lists for life-saving organ transplant surgery, Australian Federal Health Minister Tanya Plibersek recently announced a radical pilot program which will offer living organ donors a six-week “wage”. The amount isn’t large (approximately $3600 US$) but it is hoped the measure will improve chances for the roughly one-thousand Australians waiting for a new kidney while relying on dialysis to survive. Continue reading
Filed under Kidney Donation
Here’s how you can help me
Because I am in end-stage kidney failure, I urgently need a living kidney donor. If you have type A or O blood, we may be a direct match, but it doesn’t matter if we’re a direct match or not–read on. Continue reading
Filed under Kidney Donation
Iowa’s 5-Way Kidney Transplant Chain
It works. . . strangers donating a kidney to other strangers through an organ donation registry.
The East Village in Des Moines, Iowa, a neighborhood west of the Iowa State Capitol. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)
In this instance, five donors and recipients were all in the same area–Des Moines, Iowa. My congratulations to them all.
The local media lit up on January 11th and 12th with coverage of Iowa’s longest ever kidney transplant chain: Video of one of the press conferences is at WOI-DT, the local ABC affiliate. WHO TV, the NBC affiliate, and at KTLA TV also covered the story, and you can read coverage in the Cedar Valley Courier and the Des Moines Register.
On Saturday, USA Today picked it up, adding background information and a national context.
Filed under Kidney Donation, Kidney Transplant
Study Targets Lower Rejection of Living Donor Kidneys
I’m really excited about the prospects of this medical research study turning into a viable alternative for the life-long anti-rejection medications that have potentially serious lasting long-term side effects for organ recipients–maybe even me.
Kidney transplants involve a donor who agrees to donate one of their kidneys. In a relatively new approach aimed at reducing organ rejection, living donors in a clinical trial at Northwestern University Medical Center are also asked to also donate part of their immune system.
Filed under Kidney Disease, Kidney Donation, Kidney Transplant
Proposal to Revise National Kidney Allocation System
According to this article in the New York Times, a recent proposal from the kidney transplantation committee of the United Network for Organ Sharing (UNOS) would change how kidneys from deceased donors would be allotted to waiting transplant candidates (including me):
Central to the plan is a new index for better estimating the quality of the more than 14,000 kidneys recovered from dead donors each year. The top 20 percent of kidneys, as measured by the index, would be directed to those candidates expected to live the longest after a transplant — typically younger patients.
Because I’m over sixty, this change hurts my chances of receiving a deceased donor kidney. So, while UNOS debates these changes I continue to seek a living kidney donor. Continue reading
Filed under Kidney Donation, Kidney Transplant
Throwaway kidneys
What? That’s right.
In the last month there have been a number of newspaper articles and television news stories about this. On September 20, 2012 the New York Times said that during 2011 “2,644 of the 14,784 kidneys recovered were discarded, or nearly 18 percent, according to the United Network for Organ Sharing.”
Against this backdrop, my ongoing plea: I need someone to help me by becoming my kidney donor. (Follow this link to learn how.) Continue reading
Filed under Kidney Donation, Kidney Disease, Kidney Transplant
Sweet Sixteen
Back from a late-summer hiatus with a few photos from my daughter’s Sweet 16 party earlier in September:
This was a wonderful day, one I’ll hold onto for the rest of my life, filled with such love and joy. There was a tornado that day here in Brooklyn; miraculously kids from as far away as Philly arrived safe and sound. We included a slide show of key events and people in my daughter’s life.
Continue reading
Filed under General
HelpHOPELive
Their mission is helping transplant and catastrophic injury patents raise funds in their own local communities to help pay medical expenses not covered by insurance–including certain donor costs. HelpHOPELive, a non-profit organization near Radnor, Pennsylvania, works to establish successful grass-roots fundraising campaigns for individuals and families who are facing a transplant or who have sustained a catastrophic injuries. Once a funding application (and demonstration of financial need) are made and accepted, any money raised is sent to HelpHOPELive where it is held in a patient–dedicated “Restricted Fund” and then disbursed as needed.
Filed under Useful Resources
Study targets better kidney transplant anti-rejection results
The supply of viable kidney donations continues to lag the steadily rising demand (4%-6% per year), and medical researchers are hard at work trying to change
this dynamic. Among many different studies of kidney disease and transplantation, researchers around the country are looking at ways to decrease rejection rates and increase the length of time a kidney can be in limbo before transplantation. At NYPH/Columbia, one recently announced study at their Department of Transplantation is investigating a drug called 15NP to see if it helps kidney recipients with high rejection risk when their donor is older, or if the time between donation and implantation is greater than 24 hours. Continue reading
Filed under Kidney Donation, Kidney Disease, Kidney Transplant
To Save A Life
Guided by his faith, David Koster donated a kidney 10 years ago. After speaking with my wife, Laura, he wrote the following passage specifically for my site. His story is engaging, speaks from the heart and has a happy ending.
TO SAVE A LIFE!
There are events that take place in a persons life that are so significant and so meaningful that they have an effect on you for as long as you may live. Those of you who are married and have children can surely relate to this. By the grace of HaShem I had an experience that was so beautiful, so magnificent, so wonderful that my life will never be the same. I gave one of my kidneys to a total stranger. Continue reading
Filed under Kidney Donation, Kidney Transplant
Joanna’s Kidney Transplant
Hi there,
My name is Joanna T. I work with Neil’s wife Laura and live in The Netherlands. My family and I have been on an emotional roller-coaster over ![Joanna Thomas and [husband]](http://neilkidneytransplantinfo.files.wordpress.com/2012/06/img_6241.jpg "JoannaThomas photo")
the past few years. At the end of last year I reached end-stage kidney failure and was struggling to cope with my job and two small children. I did my best to try and avoid a transplant, but ultimately needed one.
Five months ago I received a kidney from my husband Adriaan. I was amazed at how smoothly the operation went for us both. I started to feel better as soon Continue reading
Filed under Kidney Donation, Kidney Transplant
Dana’s Milestone
On May 20th 2012 I wrote about Dana Stibolt’s two-year journey to a kidney transplant, which included a blog and a Facebook page. Today–June 4, 2012–is the one-year anniversary of his successful matched-pair transplant. He’s doing well, and his new kidney is too!
From Dana’s blog: “…visit this link [to] watch a clip from The Dr. Oz Show (of Oprah fame). It shows how one person who decided to 
donate his kidney started the world’s largest kidney swap [at the time the video was recorded]. Eight people ended up getting a kidney from eight total strangers. Pretty amazing.”
Agreed. Congrats to Dana on this wonderful milestone!
Filed under Kidney Donation, Kidney Transplant
Why Devora Steinmetz became a kidney donor
Says Devora Steinmetz, who donated a kidney to an Israeli in mid-May:
He is not a family member, he is not a member of my community, his family could hardly be more different than my own. He was simply a person in need of someone to step forward and save his life, and I was a person who had the capacity to do that. The testing proved us to be a match, I was launched into months of testing and explaining, and last Sunday I gave him one of my kidneys.
To explain her decision to be a kidney donor, Devora wrote The Torah of Chesed: Why I Became a Kidney Donor. It’s a compelling article, published by NY Jewish Week, an award-winning weekly covering local, national and international news and features affecting the Jewish community in New York, the US, Israel and around the world. Well worth the read.
Filed under Kidney Donation
Sarah Hyland’s kidney transplant
Sarah Hyland (star of the hit TV show Modern Family) recently revealed that a little over a month ago she had a kidney transplant.
Sarah Hyland, 6/10 Credit: Wikipedia
According to the June/July 2012 issue of Seventeen magazine, Hyland “who got the kidney from her father and gave the interview while recovering from surgery, says the whole experience taught her who she can really lean on in times of need.” Indeed, it is Sarah’s boyfriend who has been overseeing her daily care during recuperation, which underscores the critical need for a strong support network.
Hyland’s story is receiving wide media coverage and will help raise overall awareness of kidney donation. But almost of the stories play up the Hollywood angle and pass up the opportunity to explore recent progress in kidney donation–which is unfortunate.
For different perspectives on Hyland’s kidney dysplasia and transplant story, check it out at Seventeen magazine, ABC News, the Washington Post, and the HuffPo websites. Also, there are at least a dozen YouTube videos. Moms and Dads in PKD families can use Seventeen and the YouTube videos to support family sharing and learning.
Filed under Kidney Donation
A Kidney For Dana
In November 2009, Dana Stibolt–who was in desperate need of a kidney–started taking action. An internet-savvy guy who had a rare form of kidney disease, Dana started a blog and a Facebook Group about his need for a kidney transplant. His online effort attracted attention and a local newspaper ran a story about it. Almost two years later, a woman who found out about his condition via the internet stepped forward, and during June 2011 Dana received a kidney transplant, and he’s been doing great–as has his donor.
If you are willing to help me in my quest for a kidney transplant, here’s how.
Filed under Useful Resources
