re: Kidney Transplants, Anyone?

quote:

---

My beloved uncle called me last week and asked that I donate a kidney to him. I would like to do so. We are both O+ blood type. About to start the screening process. I hope I am able to be his donor. He is suffering from severe restless leg syndrome, which has profoundly eroded his quality of life.

---

I hope you're able to donate on his behalf. Please let us know how the process works out for you and your uncle. That's an amazing opportunity I wish I could have had for somebody else but given my circumstances I am only allowed to participate as a kidney hunter.

Question for others who catch this: Whether directly impacted, having a transplant, or seeing family go through it, what was the timeline between establishing need for a kidney, and a donor match being identified? I'm approaching month #6 of people being aware of it and having completed all of my work-up stuff (variety of tests, lab work, etc.) a month ago officially.

That is one thing I retained from my initial meeting with the clinic team. I made a mental note that if I know my donor I'll probably need a couple years of therapy to be okay.

Wait, because I've looked into this and found little information about adverse side effects...

My cousin has been on dialysis for about six years. Last year he got a call that they had a new kidney for him. The day of the surgery something came up. IDK the details but he didn't get the kidney. He's still waiting for another one.

I did read that if you donate a kidney, that if you or your family are ever in need of a kidney, you go to the front of the line...not sure if that's true, but I've honestly been researching over the last week after seeing someone local matching my blood type searching for a donor.

Sorry to hear, I am wishing you well.

On the bigger picture, people who donate kidneys are pretty special. I am sure I would do it for someone in my close inner circle, but at least for me, it seems like a huge mental mountain to climb. Any time I contemplate it as a mental exercise I just chalk it up to the fact that there are a lot of people who are just better than me.

quote:

---

It sucks for the donor, great for the person getting the kidney.

They never seem to tell the donor all the horrible downsides of having a kidney removed.

---

I donated in 1998 and don't think I can remember a single problem living with just one kidney.

I'll mitigate that with the fact that I'm not really good at discerning what true "healthy" feeling is versus what my perception of "healthy" is... for example, I lived a long time with allergy issues and even days I thought I breathed great I came to later find out I was really only about 70% of what normal people's breathing experience was.

But to reiterate, there's never been a "horrible downside" I can recall. Maybe some days when I was fatigued were one-kidney related, but I never put those two together.

I can be found at 3100Travels@gmail.com

If I begin receiving farm equipment newsletters, thanks in advance!

Meauxjeaux: I'm interested, email anytime or I'll reach out to you. Interested in kind of mentor/peer support. The NKF has that but it is phone calls only, I think.

Your insomnia sounds like something that could be related to physical activity in the later hours. I tend to cut off about 5 PM, so it's cramming things into earlier parts of the day to make it work.

The skin irritation for me seemed to be part of it, but that could also be a dry skin issue (which my nephrologist thinks was the issue more recently with itchy skin, but targeted around the stomach, rather than the sides).