We are making progress. Tuesday afternoon I received a call from the transplant center at the hospital that the test results are in, the clearances have been reviewed, the committee has met, and I can now say I am officially sick enough to need a new kidney if one can be found for me. Have a seat, pour your favorite beverage, and I’ll tell you the next chapter of this story.

Saying I am sick enough for a transplant is really not accurate and was not the point of three months of testing. We knew the level of my sickness of those organs the first time they stuck a pair of needles into my arm, attached the other ends to a dialysis machine, and said it will get easier over time. They were, they still are, and it hasn’t yet so it probably won’t. It won’t.

The point of the tests, the examinations, and the reviews was to see if I am healthy and strong enough to withstand the surgery, recovery and follow-up to replace those pieces of mine that zipped right on passed middle age outpacing the rest of me to done for. And we discovered and now have documentation that I am. Er, healthy and strong (sort of), not yet done for.

Now we just have to find a replacement for those pesky, unproductive pods. Unlike other parts of me that have been unceremoniously replaced, there aren’t any replacements for a kidney other than another kidney. That means finding somebody who is done using his or hers or someone who is ready to part with one of the two that come as standard equipment in homo sapiens.

And now we come to the point of Step 4. The List. People, including me (well, I’m people too), refer to The List. There really is no single, all encompassing, first to last list. If you want to think of a list, it would more appropriate to think of each donated organ having its own list. When a person is accepted into the program and begins waiting for an organ, his or her matching criteria is placed into a database. When an organ becomes available, the organ’s criteria is compared to the database and all those people whose needs match the offered organ are retrieved. With some exceptions they are retrieved in the order they were entered into the system. Thus, The List for that organ.

There are exceptions to being positioned on the list from the order a person entered the system. Neonatal and pediatric patients are given some preference and people in need of a transplant who had earlier in their lives donated an organ receive placement preference.

When my blood was drawn in April at that first test in the transplant center, there were already over 114,000 people waiting for an organ transplant in the United States. When I became approved on Tuesday, 143 other people joined me being added to The List. About 95 transplants were performed that day and 20 people died waiting. The List grew by about 3,600 since April.

A recent poll revealed that 95% of people support organ donation but only 54% have ever signed up to be a donor. Unfortunately, only 3% of deaths result in actual available organs appropriate for transplantation. And so, the list grows. I could wait for 3 to 5 years until I make it to the top of an organ’s list.

There is a way off the list without dying or becoming too sick that a transplant’s benefits no longer outweigh the risks. The living donor. Kidneys and portions of livers can be donated by live individuals directed for a specific recipient. (Some people actually make altruistic donations that enter the general pool and are designated to a recipient as a deceased donor organ would be.) Under very rare circumstances, lung, pancreas and intestine live donations may be possible. Living uterus donations are undergoing clinical trials.

Living donors account for about a third of kidneys transplanted in the United States. Kidneys from live donors not only mean a faster transplant for the recipient but a more successful transplant.

Already four people have stepped forward and asked about making a living donation of a kidney for me. Their evaluations will begin next month and can take two to six months to complete. I’ll take you along that side trip as we make this stop on my journey. That way you’ll know what a potential living organ has to go through.

Just in case.

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Related posts

First Steps (Feb. 15, 2018)
The Next Step (March 15, 2018)
The Journey Continues (April 16, 2018)
More Steps (May 31, 2018)