Organ donation

[dilettante]

Anyone had any experience with organ donation? My wife is pretty set on donating a kidney some time over the next few years as the kids get bigger and gets easier to envision her being down and out for a few weeks.

I was reading up on living liver donation, which is just amazing. You donation the majority of your liver, and then it grows back to normal over the next eight weeks or so. That's pretty crazy. From he sound of it, those weeks are pretty miserable for the donor (apparently your body doesn't like having large chunks of organ removed, who knew?), but within a few months you're totally recovered and you've just saved someone's life.

I'd like to think well enough of myself that something like this is in my future. The finances are daunting. Insurance covers surgery and hospital time and (in most cases) medication, but being effectively immobile for weeks on end is really expensive all by itself in terms of lost productivity/income. Since it's illegal to pay someone for organ donation, there's no good way to mitigate it, even if the recipient wants to and is able to.

Anyway, that's what's on my mind, it's not about the horrifying and depressing state of today's politics, and by golly we need some new threads around here.

[Michael]

I have no experience with organ donation - given that most organ donors do it when they die.

I have always signed my driver's license for organ donation, but I've never thought of doing something like that while still alive.

[Michael]

Originally Posted by dilettante

Anyone had any experience with organ donation? My wife is pretty set on donating a kidney some time over the next few years as the kids get bigger and gets easier to envision her being down and out for a few weeks.

I was reading up on living liver donation, which is just amazing. You donation the majority of your liver, and then it grows back to normal over the next eight weeks or so. That's pretty crazy. From he sound of it, those weeks are pretty miserable for the donor (apparently your body doesn't like having large chunks of organ removed, who knew?), but within a few months you're totally recovered and you've just saved someone's life.

I'd like to think well enough of myself that something like this is in my future. The finances are daunting. Insurance covers surgery and hospital time and (in most cases) medication, but being effectively immobile for weeks on end is really expensive all by itself in terms of lost productivity/income. Since it's illegal to pay someone for organ donation, there's no good way to mitigate it, even if the recipient wants to and is able to.

Anyway, that's what's on my mind, it's not about the horrifying and depressing state of today's politics, and by golly we need some new threads around here.

I'm a bit curious why you are considering this. Did the idea just pop into your head or do you have a personal/family motive? It does seem a bit odd that one might want to donate a kidney just for the heck of doing so.

[dilettante]

Originally Posted by Michael

I'm a bit curious why you are considering this. Did the idea just pop into your head or do you have a personal/family motive? It does seem a bit odd that one might want to donate a kidney just for the heck of doing so.

It's a way to save a life and a life that couldn't be saved by just donating money instead. I don't have relatives who needed organ transplants, but if I did I figure I'd really like them to get one. The risks to the donor are low these days, both in the short and long term, so why not? I've got a spare kidney I'm unlikely to need and lots of self-repairing liver, both of which are in good shape. If I get to a place where I can share a bit of that with someone who's dying for the lack of it and not screw up my own family in the process, it seems like a good way to go.

It's not something that's going to happen soon. We'd want the kids to be a little older and to figure out how to smoothly handle one parent being laid up for a while, but it's on the long-term plan.

[Michael]

Originally Posted by dilettante

It's a way to save a life and a life that couldn't be saved by just donating money instead. I don't have relatives who needed organ transplants, but if I did I figure I'd really like them to get one. The risks to the donor are low these days, both in the short and long term, so why not? I've got a spare kidney I'm unlikely to need and lots of self-repairing liver, both of which are in good shape. If I get to a place where I can share a bit of that with someone who's dying for the lack of it and not screw up my own family in the process, it seems like a good way to go.

It's not something that's going to happen soon. We'd want the kids to be a little older and to figure out how to smoothly handle one parent being laid up for a while, but it's on the long-term plan.

That seems quite altruistic of you.

Speaking of which, according to conservative ideology, altruism doesn't and can't exist.

[dilettante]

Originally Posted by Michael

That seems quite altruistic of you.

We should probably wait to make sure it happens first. Planning altruism is easier than doing it.

Originally Posted by Michael

Speaking of which, according to conservative ideology, altruism doesn't and can't exist.

Why not?

[Michael]

Originally Posted by dilettante

We should probably wait to make sure it happens first. Planning altruism is easier than doing it.

No doubt. That's true of just about everything!

Originally Posted by dilettante

Why not?

I'm not going to construct or advance that silly argument.