Jeff's Journal

Two Years

I am getting my head around my transplant coordinator’s response to one of my questions. Donors are being evaluated and for some reason or another, a live donor has not worked out - yet. When I asked about how long it would be for me to be matched with a kidney while waiting for a cadaveric donor, my coordinator told me to plan on about two years waiting on the transplant list. Two years.

Two years. That seems like such a long time. In that time, I will have two teenagers in the house. I’ll be a more middle aged man. That will be mere 1,248 more hours of dialysis. Another 312 days of staggering into bed after a session at the dialysis center. (But who is counting?) Of course, my coordinator may not be accurate. It could be less time. Or it could be more time.

I believe I am being stirred up and gaining a new agenda and platform. There are approximately 62,000 people waiting for a kidney transplant at the moment. The number grows every year. Last year approximately 8900 cadaveric transplants and 6500 live donor transplants were performed. That is good news, but it is not enough good news since that is pretty much a static rate while the need continues to rise every year. In addition, 3300 people died waiting for a transplant. One thing I have read is that there is not a wait time in Europe because of their policies of presumed consent. I’ll have to check and see what happens to those who believe they are organ donors in the USA. It may be time for me to begin a more earnest campaign with regards to stem cell research and therapeutic cloning.

Two years. That was the amount of time I lived in Korea. That was an amazing time for incarnational ministry and for some great things to happen. It will take some time to get my head around this one.

posted by Jeff Waldo @ 8:17 PM