Desperate woman turns to Web site for a kidney

07/27/2008
Desperate woman turns to Web site for a kidney

By:Luther Turmelle , Journal Register News Service

Mary Kay Garrow has spent her career helping others through her work at a nonprofit agency that helps build affordable housing.
But now it is the 56-year-old Cheshire woman who needs help: someone to donate a kidney.
And in an effort to find a potential donor, Garrow is marketing herself - and her need for a kidney - on the Internet.

"There's a certain amount of concern whenever you do something that puts you and your personal information out there," Garrow said. "But at the same time, if people don't know that you need a transplant, you're not going to get one. And you just don't know what moves people to donate."

Although the prospect of finding a kidney donor online might seem unsettling to some, as it did to Garrow at first, the reality of her current existence is enough to convince you that it is a risk worth taking.

Garrow needs dialysis treatments three times a week for three hours at a time at Hartford Hospital to replace the function her kidneys would perform if she didn't have end-stage renal disease. And with none of her family members able to donate one of their kidneys to her, Garrow faces staggering odds: More than 95,000 U.S. patients are waiting for an organ transplant and, according to the National Kidney Foundation, nearly 4,000 patients are added to the waiting list each month.

Garrow chose to have the dialysis done at Hartford Hospital because she works for the Hartford office of Local Initiatives Support Corp., a national organization that works with builders to develop affordable housing.

Being able to be close to work after she gets done with the treatments allows her to live a more normal life under the circumstances.

But as Garrow is quick to point out, being on dialysis requires some real compromises in an individual's life.

"It's very fatiguing," she said. "It just wears you out and it's tough on the heart."

Garrow started on dialysis at the beginning of this year and decided to begin using the Massachusetts-based Web site MatchingDonors.com in May.

Even though she has only been listed on the Web site a short time, Garrow almost found a donor to help her.

Unfortunately, Garrow found out last week that her potential donor's blood test revealed that the two women would not be a good match.

Still, Garrow said she's impressed at the selflessness of her would-be partner.

'"It's incredible that she went as far as she did for me," Garrow said.

Paul Dooley, who is chief executive officer of MatchingDonors.com, founded the organization in 2004 after his father was denied a kidney transplant because he also had cancer, Working with Dr. Jeremiah Lowney, Dooley's personal internist, the two men founded MatchingDonors.com.

Since then, the Web site has helped arrange 82 transplants. The site has 248 people listed who need a kidney donations, including nine in Connecticut.

"The number of people we're helping is growing exponentially," Dooley said. "There are 40 transplants we've arranged that will be taking place over the next several months."

But despite the growing success of MatchingDonors.com, the process of using the Internet to find a kidney donor has its detractors.

The National Kidney Foundation is concerned enough about the process to put out a position paper on the subject that states, in part:

"Internet sites have arisen to match recipients with non-directed living donors. Some of these Web sites require a registration fee for a potential recipient to be listed.

"Such sites may commercialize the donation process. The National Kidney Foundation is concerned that these Web sites may undermine U.S. policy, which prohibits the buying and selling of organs."

Others are more blunt in their opposition to the practice.

"What's going on out there on the Internet is a free-for-all on a lot of levels," Mark D. Fox, a University of Oklahoma bioethicist who helps advise the United Network for Organ Sharing, told the Washington Post in September 2005. "It's the wild, wild West, really. It has the potential for very wellintentioned people to be hurt."

UNOS is a private, nonprofit Richmond, Va.-based organization that oversees the nation's organ-procurement system. Dooley acknowledges that his Web site doesn't screen potential donors. He notes that the Internet site contains a warning about that it is illegal for someone to reap a financial benefit from "donating" their organs.

If a donor listed on MatchingDonors.com is determined to have tried to turn an organ donation into a financial transaction, Dooley said the contact information is turned over to the FBI and they are removed from the site.

"We've only had about 40 people try to do that, mostly from poorer countries overseas," he said.

But one Connecticut resident, whose June 2007 kidney transplant was arranged by MatchingDonors.com, said he would recommend it to others.

"It's a good organization; they're on the level," said Richard Cohen, an attorney from Granby. "There is a dramatic shortage (of organs) and it's only going to get worse."

As for Garrow, she remains optimistic that the right donor for her is just a click away.

"There may be something about me (on the MatchingDonors.com site) that you can relate to," Garrow said. "I've seen people on the Web site who are in law enforcement who give to fellow law enforcement people. There are really some incredible people out there who are so giving."

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