One Kidney, One Life
The Story of a Brave Donation
Taylor Krull
For The Ashland Beacon
February 4 marked five years since I donated my left kidney to a stranger.
Typically, the first thing people ask when I mention my kidney donation is, "Who did you donate it to? A family member?"
"No, just someone who needed it."
"But why?"
"Because they need it to survive, and I don’t."
While my donation completely transformed the recipient’s life, my life has remained largely unchanged. The only differences are that I’m advised against participating in contact sports, I should limit my consumption of NSAIDs and take acetaminophen for pain relief, and of course, I’m now five years older. My doctors have closely monitored my remaining kidney function since the donation, and I’m happy to report that all of my test results are within the normal range— “normal” for someone with two kidneys, not just one.
Kidney transplants are necessary for people with end-stage renal disease, also known as kidney failure. Kidney failure is the final phase of chronic kidney disease, which affects nearly 1 in 7 people. These statistics increase for people with diabetes (1 in 3) or high blood pressure (1 in 5).
There are approximately 90,000 people in the United States waiting for a kidney transplant—roughly 3,200 from Kentucky, Ohio, or West Virginia—but only 17,000 people receive a kidney transplant each year. Only one-third of those 17,000 transplants come from living donors, even though research shows that recipients of organs from living donors have better outcomes than those who receive organs from deceased donors.
I hadn’t considered being a living donor until I was scrolling through social media one day and saw a plea from a preschool teacher in New York who needed a kidney transplant. "Why not?" I thought. I reached out to the hospital for the initial testing, and I was a match! Fortunately, the preschool teacher had a family member who stepped up to donate, so he didn’t need my kidney after all.
I told my coworkers this story in a casual watercooler chat, and thought nothing of it. A month later, one of my coworkers approached me and said they had seen on social media that a family friend needed a kidney. I asked her to forward me the information, and I hopped on the hospital’s donor registry to get the process started.
Each hospital has its own system for screening donors, and this hospital’s donor registry website wouldn’t let me specify a recipient unless I had a relationship with them. So, I signed up to be a non-directed donor instead. The next day, the hospital called for an initial phone screening and to schedule my full day of medical testing. The soonest they could schedule me for testing was two months later—in November—on my 25th birthday.
The hospital system ran every possible test to make sure I was a prime candidate to donate my kidney: blood tests, an MRI, a CAT scan, an ultrasound, X-rays, EKGs, and a psych eval. After a full day of testing, my care team told me that the transplant board only meets once a month to make decisions and that the holidays would probably cause a delay.
On January 13, the hospital called. I was deemed medically and psychologically fit to donate! They reminded me again that I could back out at any time, and there would be no judgment. I assured them I wanted to proceed, and we discussed scheduling the surgery. Since I was a non-directed donor, the hospital didn’t need to coordinate with a specific recipient’s care team. Instead, they could find a recipient whose tissue type and schedule matched mine. I told the nurse I could donate as soon as February, and she said she’d call me back once they found a recipient and had the surgery scheduled—but that it might take a couple of weeks to get everything in order.
She called me back the next day. My surgery was scheduled for February 4. She reminded me I could back out at any time up until I’m put under anesthesia. I told her I wasn’t backing out, and we began preparations.
As a non-directed donor, I was able to decide if I wanted the recipient to have my information. Most non-directed donors choose to share their information so they can form a relationship with their recipient if the recipient wishes. I didn’t make that choice. I had joined a kidney donor support group before my surgery and saw countless stories of family members who resented their recipients because the recipients continued to smoke, drink heavily, or otherwise didn't take care of the kidney. I decided I didn’t want the possibility of resentment to cloud my memories of donating.
To this day, all I know about my recipient is that they had surgery in Ohio and that the surgery was successful. I may not know my recipient, but I love them and hope they are living a very full life, just as I am.
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