This Resolution will not be Kidnified

I made a couple of New Years Resolutions. My first was not to allow 2012 to be dominated by my kidney.
What I've realised though is that, in actual fact, this blog is kidnifying me. Thinking about this blog and kidney news, everything is acquiring a kidney taste (gross). My Resolution has been Kidnified. By me.

I watched The Descendants last night, for example. Instead of taking away reflections on the family's dynamics, anguish, and great acting, I have harboured away my reactions to the doctor's words at the start 'we need to start thinking about organ donation' about a lady in a coma. It made me realise that it's no wonder, I guess, that all those on organ donation lists don't end up donating, because when it comes to the punch, who wants to think about that when they're having to deal with their relations passing away.

'Go in peace' they say. And can peace involve organ donation?

Going with my kidnification, I found an incredible NYTimes article this morning talking about regulations on which patient on which list should get a kidney going spare first. Currently, these regulations are a 'little bit like the Wild West'. “There has to be some regulation' says Dr. Robert A. Montgomery, a transplant specialist at Hopkins, 'and it has to be fair, because if people don’t think it’s fair, they’re not going to donate organs.” Well said.

Because the US is so sprawling, and has such a (subjectively speaking) warped health system, there's no joint pool of kidneys that can be used for paired kidney donation (where you give for your sister, for example, but aren't a match, so your kidney goes to another couple, and their kidney comes to your sis).

“Organs should be seen as a national resource,” were the wise, well put words of Dr. Sandy Feng, a transplant surgeon at the University of California, San Francisco,

Without this national pool, you see, you have people making their own calls in their own registers/states as to whether a patient who rejects more/faster than others (and here we might be talking about me if my kidney doesn't hold on in there) should get a kidney before or after others who might be perfect hosts.

What do you think? If you're younger, should you get a kidney earlier so you can get back out there and play? Or are you fitter and can hold out on dialysis longer than someone in their 60s so should be put to the back of the queue? What about me? If my dad's kidney doesn't hold out longer than three years in me, for example, should I be put to the front of the queue because of my tough journey, or right at the back because I wasn't appreciative enough the first time around?

And doesn't it seem odd that there aren't regulations on this already? If you were given the job tomorrow of looking at kidney transplants, wouldn't that be one of your first questions: 'how should we distribute kidneys that become available? and shouldn't there be standard rules on this?'

How many people have to pop off every year, fall sick with kidney disease, weigh down on health systems and sell their personal stories to the media to get your attention?

A donation by a Good Samaritan, Rick Ruzzamenti, upper left, set in motion a 60-person chain of transplants that ended with a kidney for Donald C. Terry Jr., bottom right. 

I talked about paired donation before in a previous post. This image above comes from an article explaining how one dude gave his kidney in an altruistic donation, and it sparked a chain of no less than 60 kidney donors. The article is amazing. It runs through so many personal stories of nephews giving to cousins, ex-husbands giving to much hated ex-wives for the sake of their children, lovers giving to each other, sons to mums and more. There's more emotion wrapped up in that little photo above than can be contained in any blog post/article or documentary. And it shows that waiting lists are pointless when there are enough donors out there to fix the problem.

It also pointed out some stats (I told you I live by them) that I didn't like. A third of donors won't match the people they want to donate to, even if they share the same blood type. I was lucky the first time around, for example, because not just my dad, but also my brother and my cousin were matches. And that was out of just 6 people tested (my husband, mum and other brother, much to their chagrin, were not). But I read in this article that part of the reason that matches are so hard to find is because of antibodies that can build up due to previous transplants, pregnancies etc... These antibodies mean that, close matches in terms of blood types etc..., would just be rejected if plumbed in. I have an antibody that's just arrived. Does this mean that my brother and cousin are no longer matches? That's my safety net right there. And I've just found a hole in it.