Organ Donation Down

[okarol]

Organ Donation Down
Reported by: Jenna Zibton
Monday, Aug 10, 2009 @05:13pm

John Brann credits his stepdaughter for saving his life. Sherry Ramsey became a living organ donor giving him her kidney. "I can't repay it. There's no way. Ii wouldn't have gotten a living donor or any donor" says Brann. Because of his age and previous cancer, Ramsey was his last shot before dialysis. Ramsey says four days a week, three hours a day on kidney dialysis is no life for anyone. But it's a life that more people are living. Willis Knighton Regional Tranplant Doctor Gazi Zibari says this year they're seeing fewer living donors. "It's a horrendous problem." Obesity is cutting down the chances for success because donors are ruled out if they are hypertensive, have diabetes or a BMI of 35 or higher. More than 100,000 people across the U.S. need organ transplants. That's enough to fill up Independence Stadium twice. About 400 of them are right here in this area. Almost two years after the surgery, Ramsey says it's something she would do again. "Why not see if you're a match. It hasn't altered my life. I'm normal." Doctors also say the economy may be to blame for lower than normal numbers because donors have to think about post surgical care and being out of work. To become a living organ donor, or to find out more information visit www.organdonor.gov

http://arklatexhomepage.com/content/fulltext/?cid=70392

[petey]

Ramsey says four days a week, three hours a day on kidney dialysis is no life for anyone.

For the ones with no other choice, this is SOME life (which, to me, is better than NONE at all).  Even at six days a week (three hours each day), dialysis provided a good life for my husband Marvin.  Now that we're down to only five days a week, it's even better.  When you have no other choice except death, you do the best you can with what you have and are grateful for the opportunity to live one more day (dialysis and all).

[okarol]

  I agree petey

[monrein]

What's really impressive is that in this case there was an alternative, another choice that Ms Ramsey clearly saw.  One that she could make a reality and she did.  That's the beauty miracle of living donors, they offer a chance at tuning a good life into a better life, exactly as you did Petey, for Marvin.

[petey]

I'm all for living donation (obviously because I was a living donor), and I'm glad that this man had someone who would step up and donate to him (hey, it kept one more name off the list and that has to somewhere down the line give Marvin a better chance).

It's just that he never had to go on dialysis (as I read it), and yet he says dialysis is "no life."  He doesn't know that.  He doesn't know what it's like to HAVE to live on dialysis because you have no other choice -- or because your other options have been exhausted.

I wish everyone who wanted a transplant could have a living donor step forward.  I also wish that people who haven't had to live on dialysis wouldn't make it sound so horrible.  I know dialysis is not easy, it's not pretty, and it's not fun ... but, it is, right now for Marvin, life.  And, it's a good life -- all things considered.