What possessed me to donate?!

In January of 2017, a lot was changing. I had just moved to Colorado, I’d just started organizing for the first time, and the United States had just elected a reality TV star to its highest office. A good friend recommended a Coursera course to me and, perhaps to add some stability to the otherwise tumultuous circumstances, I began watching an hour or two each day. It’s a fantastic course, if you have the time, and it covers Consequentialist topics from abstract philosophy to charitable giving to organ donation.

I’d thought about many of the topics before but that last one, donating an organ (specifically a kidney), was something that had never even crossed my mind. In fact, most folks I’ve talked to about this are quite like me, very few of us even consider the idea that we could give away a piece of our bodies to a total stranger. Once the idea was in my brain, however, I couldn’t get rid of it. I called my older brother to ask him what he thought, and he recommended I wait a year and see if I still wanted to do.

So I did. I waited until February of 2018, found a transplant center (using this link to identify hospitals near me which facilitated living kidney donation), and called the transplant center at Presbyterian/St. Luke’s Medical Center. After a chat with a delightful nurse from the donation center, she told me that I would need to wait three months (hospital policy) before i could move forward with the process. I waited another 3 months, and called the hospital back, which resulted in a medical packet I had to fill out. Let’s fast forward about 6 months through lots of paperwork, medical tests, and conversations with psychologists, nutritionists, and other doctors to November 5 of 2018. It was something like 5AM, and I went into the hospital (accompanied by my mom <3) to be injected with anesthesia and whisked away as I slipped to unconsciousness.

Remembering to Breathe: The Recovery

Waking up, I kept forgetting to breathe. Really! The nurse kept softly scolding me “Jamessss, you have to keep breathing.,” he would gently chastise as I confusingly peered through hazy eyes at a room I didn’t recognize. Forgetting to breathe is apparently a common after-effect of the anesthesia they used and (somehow) not concerning. Soon I was trucked away on the fun rolling hospital bed to my hospital room, where I got to see my mom yet again! Despite being catheterized, having a long row of stitches on my abdomen, and, oh yeah, being a kidney short, I felt fantastic. I truly felt like I could leave the hospital right then and there. That feeling didn’t last. Ah, the wonders of anesthetic.

I had to spend two days in the hospital (I think, to be honest my sense of time was blurred), which was a good thing, because the next day I was in a lot of pain. Despite the Tramodol (which did nothing) and the Tylenol (which seemed to help), my shoulders of all places were in loads of pain. Apparently, this is due to residual CO2 gas from the operation leaking out of your body. Strange but painful. They soon sent me home, and the next two weeks were full of slow, painful walks and grad-school applications. After those two weeks I was back at work (I’d get winded but was mostly okay) and within a month was at about 100%. Since then, I have not once felt pain or experienced any difficulty or change to my life whatsoever (except I take Tylenol now instead of Advil, if that is a deal breaker do NOT donate a kidney).

The Case for Donation

Ultimately, my life was little affected by donation. I don’t have pain, I don’t have regrets, I don’t have need of an additional kidney. Someone else’s life, though, was changed forever.

Dialysis sucks, but it is the only option for those who have kidney disease to the point of needing a transplant. “There are approximately 100,000 people on the kidney transplant waiting list – and many people wait more than 5 -10 years for a kidney from a deceased donor…A staggering 5,000 people die every year waiting for a kidney transplant and another 5,000 are taken off the list because they are no longer healthy enough to receive a transplant.” When I was considering donating, the main thing people would ask is “what if you need that extra kidney someday?” That is a fair question, but it ignores the reality that people already needed my kidney right then. It wasn’t some hypothetical, 50-year off situation, it was immediate and dire. Maybe I’ll need a kidney someday, but the woman who received my kidney needed it at once, and her life (and her 5 children’s lives) were drastically affected by her need. Now they aren’t, because now she is healthy and happy. (by the way, when you donate you get put to the top of the donation list if you ever do need a kidney).

Another interesting thing about giving your kidney to a stranger is helping facilitate a “paired exchange” program. In certain cases (including the case of my donation), someone in need of a kidney will have a loved one willing to donate but incompatible. As an example, my recipient’s partner was willing to donate, but his blood type didn’t match hers. When this happens, willing-donor and recipient can enter a paired exchange program, where the deal is basically “I will donate my kidney if my loved one gets a kidney from someone else.” This is awesome, but it can have a hold-up issue where there is no one to “start the chain.” By donating to a stranger, I was able to start this chain, which ultimately saw multiple (I think three) people receive a kidney. That is a BIG difference!

Today, for the first time since donation, I met my recipient, Olive. She is a wonderful woman, loves our Colorado sports (go Broncos! Also go Avalanche and Nuggets (the Rockies are ok, too)), is quick witted, and is a damn hard worker. She told me about her history with kidney disease. She told me all about what a difference it made to have a functioning kidney, from losing weight to unending energy to not feeling constantly like she was hungover. She told me about the second chance she got at life. I cannot emphasize enough that this is the reason to donate. Knowing abstractly that someone no longer suffers from the issues caused by kidney disease is one thing, meeting Olive was another thing altogether. I’ve looked forward to this day since before I donated and, now that I’ve met Olive, I would do it again in a heartbeat (I can’t, though, only one kidney left).