| Hey guys,
Recently I signed up on a website called MatchingDonors.com ... On the website, patients in need of an organ transplant can sign up and post their profiles. People who wish to donate an organ as a live donor can also post their profiles.
I've been thinking for awhile that I wanted to donate organs/tissue as a living donor. See, normally people waiting for an organ have to wait on a list for someone to die, quite literally. Even in death, their donor must be listed as an organ donor, and must've been in decent health at death. The problem with this system, is that often times it takes several years for a match to come up for someone awaiting an organ. Alot of people die each day and every year because they never find a match.
Also, a patient who receives a transplant is more likely to not reject that organ when the organ comes from a living donor. There's a medication they can give a transplant patient a couple of days before the surgery to help them not reject the organ. When a patient receives an organ from a non-living donor, this isn't possible, because the surgery has to be done as an emergency surgery. There's no time to prep them for the organ, so they're more likely to reject it.
Long story short, your organs will go to much better use if you donate them while you're living. You can donate a kidney, a portion of your liver, a pancreas portion, a lung lobe, bone marrow, and even intestine.
www.MatchingDonors.com is a pretty controversial site. There's a bit of hype about people meeting each other over the internet. Often times, if you tell a transplant center where you met your donor, they won't do the transplant. So don't mention it if you donate unless you know they'll be cool with it. I signed up here, and I'm in the process of finding out what my blood type is so that I can determine who to get tested against. There's plenty of patients in need of an organ, and millions of people capable of donating to them. Unfortunately this seems to be one of those things that people are only willing to do after death. Either way, I intend fully to do it if a doctor determines that I'm healthy enough to participate in a transplant.
As far as I know, you need to be 18 to join a donor program. I just turned 18, so lucky me! There's thousands and thousands of people who need help from people with healthy organs.You've probably come in contact with those people before. There's people here on xanga who need an organ... and everywhere you've ever been.
The only problem I face with this... is what if I match more then one person? Then I have to decide who to give my organ to. So, in order to make this decision a bit easier, I'm hoping to convince other people to at least give this a shot. I've heard tons of excuses, but the only legitimate one is if you're not healthy enough to do it. The patient in need of the organ, their insurance will cover the cost of your testing, organ extraction, and I think even the follow-ups. Often times, the patients/their family/church, etc, will pay for your lost wages and your travel/boarding costs... So I don't think that "Well I really can't afford it right now..." is a legitimate excuse either. This isn't for everyone I guess, but at least give it some thought.
God bless anyone who even considers this.
-Shannon |
