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I first started thinking about kidney donation a few years ago.  It was just a blip on my radar started by a human interest story on an altruistic donation between two strangers.  I looked into it just a bit but found that there were several moral/ethical/financial things that I would need to work out with myself before it was something I could seriously consider.  Needless to say, I have not entered into this decision lightly.  I did not just wake up this morning and think, "hhrrrrmm, I have this pesky extra kidney I need to get out of me and today is the day it's got to find a new home."

There are so many ways a live donor can approach this journey.  You can do a complete stranger donation, opting to meet your recipient later if they desire to or you can opt to never meet them or find out how things go for them if you wish, you can donate to someone you know, or you can hand pick the person that you want to give your kidney to.  I don't know anyone that needs a kidney, so that is out.  A total stranger donation leaves the decision in the hands of strangers and while the lack of pressure to make any decisions is nice I would like to know that the person I am donating to is a halfway decent person.  The picking a stranger seemed very much like a popularity contest and that didn't seem quite right either.  It took a few years to come to terms with taking on the responsibility of picking a recipient.  There are no guarantees that the person I (hopefully) donate to doesn't end up being a serial killer, someone that refuses to take their anti-rejection meds, a raving bigot or homophobe, your standard mouth-breathing Cletus, or God forbid a staunch conservative Republican.  Once I made it past the "there are no guarantees" hurdle in my brain I then had to jump the "who am I to pick who deserves this and who doesn't" hurdle.  I am not God, I know this, I have always known this.  Once I realized that I am not deciding who is worthy and who is not, I am simply offering up a little piece of me to assist someone in their time of need.  Hopefully this someone is a good person, with a good heart and the desire to go out and live a life that in someway gives back to the world.  They don't have to be an activist or a high profile community leader, just someone that gives something positive back to this world, if they do that is great, if they don't there is nothing I can do about it, but I can try to get this right for me.

I have kids, family and friends that I adore.  What if one of them needed a kidney later on and I was a match but couldn't help because I already handed mine to someone else.  What if I don't make it throughthe surgery?  You know what, if it happens it happens.  What if I drove to work and got in an accident and died and left my kids without a mother.  The world is full of what ifs, most of them much more likely to happen than one of my own needing MY kidney or something terrible happening during the donation process.  I cannot let those what ifs keep my paralized with fear in my home hiding from the world.  As far as I can tell there is no kidney disease in my family nor with my friends and if there was I would sure love it if someone was there to help us out, be it stranger or a loved one.  While my mom is not happy with the idea my kids are 100% in support of my decision to donate.  Mom is just being a mom, I would be scared too if my kids were to come to me with this, but she will support me, like it or not, because that is how our family rolls.  The kids have all been told that if they change their minds to let me know.  They know the risks and the benefits, they weighed them carefully and have said, without any doubt, to proceed as I see fit.  If they change their little minds, I will listen and re-consider, but knowing them they will be standing behind me the whole time, supporting me in whatever way they can.  Even the ex husband said he would help out with whatever is needed during this process, we may not have been good together married but he is a good Dad and will make sure that things go as smooth as possible, because family is family and that is all there is to it.

Finances were an issue.  Being a single mother and having a mortgage and other financial responsibilities it just seemed a stretch to take the time off from work that I would need to go through something like this.  I knew I could build up enough sick, comp and vacation to cover the time off work but travel expenses and day-to-day things that always seem to pop up scared the bejesus out of me.  Last week I went and talked to our HR people about an extended leave of absence and was delighted by the news that our state law gives me the right to take a month off from work, paid, to donate an organ.  This will not affect my insurance, seniority, vacation or sick time.  I really think that at some point in time I am going to have to find a way to get the word out to others that they have the option to help someone this way.  If this little known secret can make one person step up to donate to one person it will be worth spending the time and effort getting the word out.  Like everything else, education goes a long way.  This in no way will cover what I will miss from my part time job nor will it cover travel expenses or lodging or anything else, but I will cross that bridge when I come to it.  Being a little financially tight for a bit is something I am certain will not be a huge strain, a strain for sure, but nothing I cannot get past.

Now, you'd think that offering up a kidney would be fairly easy.  More than 15 people a day die waiting for a transplant.  I have read anywhere from 15 to 19 a day.  Wow.  Considering how populous this country is that isn't much but considering how easy the fix is for most of those people it seems absurdly high, especially when you think about what those people endure while they are waiting.  I imagined people jumping at the chance to lay claim to my kidney.  I tried setting things up with a man out west, he seemed like someone that would "live the shit" outta my kidney.  He was blessed with a healthy donor before I was able to step up.  I sent a message to a mother with a son that was in need of an adult kidney, no response.  I have sent a message to a school teacher down south, again no responses.  I was sitting here thinking, "really, if it were me I would be checking my messages daily, multiple times, obsessively"  That line of thought was very short lived.  Honestly, if it were me I probably would check often, at first, and after a day or two's worth of disappointment I would proably step away and get back to dealing with my life  full of Drs appointments and dialysis and all the other crappy things that you'd have to go through.  Life would be hard enough having to be tethered to a machine for hours on end just to stay alive, what time I had away from that I would want to be out living what I could, because we.never.know.

This afternoon I will be placing a phone call to the teacher down south.  As hard as it is to go public and ask a stranger for a kidney, I find it almost as hard to offer one up.  It seems almost invasive, I know that is silly, but that is what it feels like.  I am not afraid of being rejected, "I don't want your smelly old kidney" I am worried about bothering a total stranger.  I am charging up my phone now, just in case, for something that will probably be a 30 second message that I will be leaving on a voice mail.  I am shaking on the inside now, and I am sure my hands will be shaking when I pick up the phone.  I have tried to wrap my brain around the fact that donating a kidney doesn't leave me weak in the knees but calling a stranger does, I gave up, it is what it is.