Posts Tagged ‘non directed’
May 23rd, 2017 | 
Author: From the Guardian by an anonymous donor.
“Why I donated one of my kidneys to a stranger – it wasn’t a difficult choice”
Non-directed altruistic kidney donation. An unlovely term that means giving one of your kidneys to a stranger. I’d always known this was a thing but I’d thought it was a bit weird, a bit excessive, like donating an arm. Why not just stick to blood donation?
I’d last come across the idea in Larissa MacFarquhar’s 2015 book Strangers Drowning which had the alarming subtitle “Voyages to the Brink of Moral Extremity”. It’s about ultra do-gooders who make normal people feel uncomfortable or worse. Which may be part of why they do it.
MacFarquhar’s subjects include people whose sense of the world’s suffering leads them to give all their possessions away, live like vagrants, move to impossibly dangerous parts of the world. The help they provide for the poor seems questionable, but there is no doubt about the harm they do to themselves and those around them. Among these extremists are altruistic kidney donors. Many people, she says, “particularly doctors” (she’s writing about US doctors) find this donation “bizarre even repellent”. The brink of moral extremity did not sound like a place I wanted to go.
In October of last year I was in the car with my wife and we were listening to a podcast in which a speaker used kidney donation as an example of a contract that can’t be enforced. Almost irrelevantly he said people’s queasiness about the subject isn’t really rational: we don’t need two kidneys, the operation is safe and the benefit to the recipient huge. I immediately thought: if that’s true, it sounds like a good idea.
Would you give your kidney to a complete stranger?
Read more here —-
https://www.theguardian.com/society/2017/may/20/why-i-decided-to-donate-one-of-my-kidneys-to-a-stranger
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Altruistic Kidney Donation (non-directed) = is a form of donation whereby a healthy living person is able to donate a kidney, to someone they do not know. The donor does not have a relationship with the recipient and is not informed who the recipient will be.
Giving someone their life back and giving them back to their family by donating one of your kidneys is a most wonderful thing to do. I cannot think of a better gift to give someone than to give them a second chance at life.
If you want to know more about being a donor then please read this website. Start with the links on the left under “become a donor”. You will hear my own views on the evaluation process I went through at the Churchill Hospital, Oxford. Each stage exactly what the tests were and how I felt about them. I take you through the operation day, my emotions and thoughts and how I felt physically afterwards. Finally my recovery both the 2 days in hospital and then when at home.
I have not glossed over anything and if there was an aspect I was not happy with, I say so. Also read other peoples comments on my posts as each person can view the donation process differently and also have different reactions during the recovery period. At the top of this page you will find a link to “Blogs” where people have given me their story both donors and people waiting for a kidney. The “About” page gives my thoughts on why I wanted to donate etc.
So please start reading about what it is like to be a donor by selecting from the links on the left under “Become a Donor” or start with the first one here:
http://livingkidneydonation.co.uk/altruistic-living-kidney-donor-evaluation.htm
You can also find out more about being an altruistic donor by going to these links:
1) NHSBT (NHS Blood and Transplant) non directed Altruistic donation
2) HTA (Human Tissue Authority) non directed Altruistic donation
What I d know is that given the chance I would donate a kidney again – without hesitation.
Any questions please just ask or contact me directly using the Contact form, link is top right of page.
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Di Franks
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.“Take what you have, however little, and do your best with it.”
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