Donating to a stranger... sort of.

A lot of people out there have family members who may need a kidney to live a normal life. Some get discouraged because they are not a match, they really want to help but can't simply because of something they cannot even control, their biology. Well you don't have to be discouraged. There is now a new program in place nationally, it has only been active for a few months now and from what I know has only been used once. This new program is called the "Living Kidney Paired donor Exchange" and it is tailored to people who have loved ones who need an organ, but they are not a match.

The way it works is once you have gone through the oodles of tests the donor and donie will be put on a national list. A few times per year that list will be scoured and paired donors and donies will be matched with other paired donors and donies and the donors will go to the donies cities and kidney transplants will be performed at the same time. Don't take my word for it though, you can read all about it here.

Part of the reason why I bring this up now is my aunt Gloria is currently going through the process of being certified to go on this list. She told me this a few months ago and she is still going through the testing. It takes a long time to get all the tests done, this is something that the medical community takes very seriously. Which is good, while I would love to get on this list sooner it's good that they test everybody that goes on it thoroughly for me too.

So I just wanted to make sure I thank my aunt publicly for putting her self through all the riggers of being tested because it is not an easy process to go through, being poked and prodded like a test monkey.

Owen