The Case for Organ Donation: What Will You Leave Behind?
By Isabella Kelly-Goss
Someone on the organ transplant list dies every 7 minutes across America, according to the Organ Donation website, through the Health Resources and Services Administration (HRSA). An estimated 103,233 people are on that list.
I recently spoke with kidney donation recipient Katisha Vertrees about her story and the anonymous donation given to her by a complete stranger. Only 29 years old, Katisha was put on the organ transplant list after a miscarriage sent her into end-stage renal failure at 27. At age 20, she was diagnosed with Lupus and Kidney Disease. At such a young age, she had a hard time accepting her diagnosis and everything that came with it.
Image Credit: Isabella Kelly-Goss
“None of my friends had to go to doctors’ appointments or take medication every day, I didn’t want to either,” she told me during our interview.
Meeting at our local coffee shop, Katisha showed up in a bright yellow, sunflower-covered dress that perfectly matched her personality. Now doing much better, she said she had recently returned to work. She works as a vascular technician at multiple medical facilities in our area.
Around the time Katisha was diagnosed, she began dating her now husband, Taylor. After growing up in the same neighborhood, they reconnected as adults, and almost immediately, she knew she had to take better care of herself. For her, Taylor was a driving force throughout all of this.
“I figured if I wanted to stick around and be with him, I should probably start taking better care of myself,” she explained. “I thought this wasn’t anyone else’s problem, that I should fix it on my own…he helped me accept help from other people.”
Image Credit: Sentara Medical
Katisha’s friends and family helped post her story on social media, looking for a living donor. Katisha has an O-blood type, which can increase the wait time for a kidney to 8-10 years. After 2 years on the transplant list, a complete stranger saw her story online and “immediately knew” she was going to donate to Katisha. The woman, who has met with Katisha but wishes to remain anonymous, told her she got tested to match before even telling her friends and family. A perfect match, the transplant happened, and her donor is now up and back to normal.
Living donation is incredibly rare, but plenty of direct donations happen within circles of friends and family. However, anyone can be tested to direct or randomly donate an organ. Some celebrities, like Selena Gomez and Sarah Hyland, are popular examples of direct donations. They both received kidneys from friends and family. Stevie Wonder and Mandy Patinkin received a kidney and a cornea transplant, respectively, from undisclosed donors.
Kidneys are not the only living donations that can be made, contrary to popular belief. Pieces of the liver can be donated, and will actually regenerate in both the donor and donor recipient. Other organs, like pieces of the lung, pancreas, and intestine, can be donated as well. Though they do not grow back, HRSA says most living donors go about their lives with the healthy, active quality of life as they did before.
While many people worry about the financial aspect of donating, a recipient’s insurance should likely cover the costs of the operation itself; HRSA offers a reimbursement program which would cover up to $6,000 worth of costs for, “travel, lodging, and meal costs, lost wages, and Childcare and eldercare costs related to the donor’s evaluation, surgery, and follow-up visits.”
As morbid as it may seem, the benefits of being a deceased donor literally bring people new lives. There are only specific circumstances in which deceased organs are eligible to be donated; however, signing up can be as easy as going to your local DMV website or location and adding your name to the list. There’s a popular saying in the transplant community that I’ve learned recently: “You can’t take it with you.” It’s a slightly funny phrase, but it’s completely true. You can’t take it with you, but someone else could live a whole life because of it.
If you are interested in becoming a living or deceased donor, check out this website and look into your local social media transplant groups. Katisha, as well, has started her own group dedicated to sharing the stories of other women in need of kidney donations. Her group, Kidneys For Tidewater, can be found on Facebook and Instagram as @Kidneys4Tidewater.
