I recently heard the following story, by email from a recent kidney donor, who has given me permission to share it. It's lightly edited to preserve her privacy and mine, but I can't resist noting that her first name is Hope.
"Dear Professor Roth,
"Seven weeks ago today, I donated a kidney to a stranger in Minnesota. Mayo Clinic sent me his email address this afternoon, just in case I want to contact him. I'm not sure yet if I want to initiate communication but I certainly can't stop thinking about it. It made me think about the Freakonomics episode I heard three years ago that started everything. You know the one...
"When I heard the episode, I knew right away I wanted to become a living kidney donor. I was 49 at the time. I never had children and my life felt incomplete. Moreover, I lost my mother to cancer after a long battle, when I was just 14 years old. I daydreamed about helping a child who had a sick parent so she doesn't have to go through what I went through.
"My wife's cousin needed a kidney shortly after the episode aired. I asked her if it was ok if I stepped up. I played her the Freakonomics episode and she approved. I reached out to her cousin Rick. It turns out a few people volunteered and he got a direct match. I felt defeated, which sounds selfish after such good news. Then I heard a follow up episode that united a donor with his recipient. Stephen Dubner was crying... I was crying... I called Mayo Clinic the next morning and signed up for testing.
"The rest is a long story and I know you are a busy man so I'll skip most of it. I ended up being part of a pair, instead of an altruistic donor. There was a man who worked with my wife that needed a kidney. He once saved her life with the Heimlich maneuver so it was pretty poetic that I could save his. He received his kidney from a bridge donor and I gave mine to someone on the diseased donor list. So I got to save two lives! I'm doing great. I went back to work a couple of weeks ago. I have no regrets and I hope I can inspire others to do something selfless and extraordinary in their lifetime.
"I hope others have written to you. I'm sure you see the statistics and know the impact of what you created with paired kidney donation. I just wanted to make sure you hear some personal stories. Life changing stories..."
A subsequent email exchange clarified some details:
"Hi Al! I did all of my testing in May of 2016 to be a non-directed donor. I tested positive for Valley Fever and had to wait 90 days to be retested. The 2nd test was negative and I was approved but I was getting married in October so we put a hold on the donation. Mark came into the picture after that. He didn’t know about paired donation. We got him to switch to Mayo and we became a pair. He had lots of complications so I had to wait a long time. When he was finally approved, so much time had passed that I had to do most of the testing all over again. It took awhile to find me a match because I’m AB+.
So a false positive Valley Fever test got Mark a kidney.
I met Mark the day of his surgery. My wife and I were the first faces he saw. He was there the day of mine. He brought me flowers and a card from his kids.
My team at Mayo Clinic were there for me the whole time. There was never any pressure and changing from non-directed to paired was seamless. They never discussed Mark. He had his own team. I was allowed to chicken out at any time. But I’ve never been so sure of anything in my life."
***********
And here are my posts linking to the Freakonomics shows that gave people so much of Hope.
and this one (from huffingtonpost.com):
"Dear Professor Roth,
"Seven weeks ago today, I donated a kidney to a stranger in Minnesota. Mayo Clinic sent me his email address this afternoon, just in case I want to contact him. I'm not sure yet if I want to initiate communication but I certainly can't stop thinking about it. It made me think about the Freakonomics episode I heard three years ago that started everything. You know the one...
"When I heard the episode, I knew right away I wanted to become a living kidney donor. I was 49 at the time. I never had children and my life felt incomplete. Moreover, I lost my mother to cancer after a long battle, when I was just 14 years old. I daydreamed about helping a child who had a sick parent so she doesn't have to go through what I went through.
"My wife's cousin needed a kidney shortly after the episode aired. I asked her if it was ok if I stepped up. I played her the Freakonomics episode and she approved. I reached out to her cousin Rick. It turns out a few people volunteered and he got a direct match. I felt defeated, which sounds selfish after such good news. Then I heard a follow up episode that united a donor with his recipient. Stephen Dubner was crying... I was crying... I called Mayo Clinic the next morning and signed up for testing.
"The rest is a long story and I know you are a busy man so I'll skip most of it. I ended up being part of a pair, instead of an altruistic donor. There was a man who worked with my wife that needed a kidney. He once saved her life with the Heimlich maneuver so it was pretty poetic that I could save his. He received his kidney from a bridge donor and I gave mine to someone on the diseased donor list. So I got to save two lives! I'm doing great. I went back to work a couple of weeks ago. I have no regrets and I hope I can inspire others to do something selfless and extraordinary in their lifetime.
"I hope others have written to you. I'm sure you see the statistics and know the impact of what you created with paired kidney donation. I just wanted to make sure you hear some personal stories. Life changing stories..."
A subsequent email exchange clarified some details:
"Hi Al! I did all of my testing in May of 2016 to be a non-directed donor. I tested positive for Valley Fever and had to wait 90 days to be retested. The 2nd test was negative and I was approved but I was getting married in October so we put a hold on the donation. Mark came into the picture after that. He didn’t know about paired donation. We got him to switch to Mayo and we became a pair. He had lots of complications so I had to wait a long time. When he was finally approved, so much time had passed that I had to do most of the testing all over again. It took awhile to find me a match because I’m AB+.
So a false positive Valley Fever test got Mark a kidney.
I met Mark the day of his surgery. My wife and I were the first faces he saw. He was there the day of mine. He brought me flowers and a card from his kids.
My team at Mayo Clinic were there for me the whole time. There was never any pressure and changing from non-directed to paired was seamless. They never discussed Mark. He had his own team. I was allowed to chicken out at any time. But I’ve never been so sure of anything in my life."
***********
And here are my posts linking to the Freakonomics shows that gave people so much of Hope.
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