How I decided on a recipient.

[MrsFishy]

The young man I was hoping to donate to is in his early 20's.  I had been researching being a kidney donor for about 3-4 months and wanted to know everything there is to know (I still haven't reached that point though!  LOL) about being a live donor.  I was spending lots of time reading posts here and at LDO. I came across a post from someone who was offering to BE a donor and the post seemed odd to me.  It was like offering a free kitten for adoption.  It was very vague and seemed hokey and too good to be true.  It was something like this: "I have O blood type and would like to donate my kidney to who ever needs it.  Please contact me right away at (HisEmail@addy.com) so I can make arrangements to give it to you".  So, anyway, several people replied and thanked him for being a willing donor and one reply really got my attention.  It was a man who wasn't looking for himself but looking for a young man who HE himself had donated a kidney to.  Unfortunately, there were complications and that kidney needed to be removed less than a year later.  I thought to myself, "Wow, here's a guy who made an altruistic donation to a stranger, went thru ALL of that, and then it didn't work out and he is STILL trying to help this poor guy".  They met shortly before the surgery and became friends afterwards.  I contacted this man and asked him for some more information about his experience and the guy who still needs a kidney.  He sent me links to web sites set up to help try to find a donor for him and I also hunted down his facebook page set up to find a donor.  For whatever reason, I felt an instant connection to this kid and knew I wanted to help him if I could.  I then got started by contacting his tx coordinator and I think I've already posted everything from that point forward. 

Hope that helps provide a better understanding of who and why I am trying to help this person I've never met.  He's just slightly older than my own oldest son so that was another thing that stuck me and made me want to help him.  I guess I started thinking about how if this were my son, I would want to do everything in my power to try to help him.....just because he is someone else's son doesn't make me feel much different though.

[MooseMom]

That's a lovely story; you have a truly generous heart.

I think this makes it even more imperative that you follow Cariad's advice and contact this young man and confide in him as to your intentions.  Needing/looking for/finding a living donor is such an emotionally tumultuous experience, and I truly am not sure that this sort of "surprise" will result in the reaction you anticipate.  I'd be willing to bet that he feels so out of control of his own life, and I am not sure that your generous gesture will make him feel MORE in control unless you allow him to participate.

This may be something that you and the social worker can discuss when you have your psych eval.

[cariad]

What a sweet story. I can relate to finding that one story that stands out above the others. Once upon a time I knew I wanted a brother for my older son, so I would go online and read about children up for adoption overseas. There was one boy that I could not get out of my mind because he was being bullied by the other orphans for having crossed eyes. Now crossed eyes are completely fixable, so I contacted the orphanage in Khazakstan I think it was and asked how much it would be to correct the problem. Five hundred dollars US (can you imagine? My husbands eye surgery cost nearly 10 times that!). I told my husband I wanted to donate and he said go for it so I did.

A few months later they sent me photocopies of several pictures taken of him with a little bandage above his eye and his eyes now both looking outward. (I was glad to see them because it stupidly never occurred to me that they could have just taken the cash and I would have had no recourse.) Anyhow, orphanages overseas are odd places - most of the kids have families, they are just too poor to take care of them. That boy's picture disappeared from the site after that and I always assumed that with his corrected eyesight his family decided to take him back. Telling myself that always made me feel good, because that is where you would want to see a little boy grow up, and he was already around 6 when I donated that money. The arrival of our second son put paid to any lingering adoption fantasies.

Anyhow, a far cry from donating an organ, but I have been known to follow my heart with these things, too, and so far, I am glad I have. Good luck to you!