The Running of the Donors
Next month will be the running of the bulls in Pamplona during the San Fermin Festival. People enjoy the festival and pay homage to the patron saint by out running the horns of a bull. I look at that as wasted tissue these days. In Houston, it has been the running of the donors.My transplant coordinator continues to process calls from friends, several friends. She is impressed with the folks she is meeting and I have to agree, they are great people. Another potential donor found out yesterday she is not able to donate to me. The list is getting slim. It is a humongous course of action to donate an organ. I think that is why the transplant coordinator requires the potential donors to come to the clinic and actually walk through the door. A telephone call is one thing, but when you walk through the door it raises other issues. And it needs to raise those issues. The likelihood of having to wait for a cadaveric donor is gaining in the odds. After running through several donors, I realize how unique the experience with donor #1 was.
A new possibility is emerging. Johns Hopkins Hospital is working with optimized matches of multiple donors and a concept called Kidney Paired Donations. They have worked a new algorithm with this concept that increases the potential number of transplants. The way it works is that if I have a donor that is not a match for me, that donor might be a match for another person waiting on the transplant list. From there, they try to match the mismatches of patients and their donors. I think of it like a game of “Go Fish” for organs. Anyone got any O Positives out there?
Memorial Hermann is beginning to explore the paired donation concept. Right now, Johns Hopkins is the only hospital doing the paired donations. If Memorial Hermann opens up to the idea, and it could take some time for a medical facility to make changes, then that would be an expanded option for transplant recipients. That will also raise new issues for donors.
posted by Jeff Waldo @ 8:20 PM
3 Comments:
so what does it take to actually donate, what makes someone a match?
kristen r.
hey jeff. just wanted to say hey and i am now praying for you. and your family and that donor out there who God is preparing.
whitney s.
jeff, i'm checking in on your journal every day or so. thanks for the transparency. kind of makes it possible for us to journey with you. kinda.
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