WELD-What Do Living Donors and Transplant Folks Talk About?

health

When living donors (women) and transplant professionals (men and women) get together, what do they talk about? Well, if a recent meeting of a local WELD (Women Encouraging Living Donation) chapter at my house is any indication, assorted animated discussions could cover the following:

Transplant surgeons Dr. Aparna Rege, bottom left, and Dr. Bradley Collins of Duke Transplant Center, Durham, NC, with a few local WELD members.
  • Spreading the word of the urgent need for living donors to reduce the 5+ year wait for a kidney for those on the transplant wait lists
  • Transplanting pigs’ kidneys to humans: logistics and ethics
  • Using drones to transport a deceased-donor kidney
  • A live kidney being put with the plane’s cargo but a heart going in the cockpit with the pilot
  • Hamilton, the musical
  • Managing kidney donors’ pain effectively with a combination of meds to reduce or even eliminate use of opioids
  • Taking part in The Big Ask, the National Kidney Foundation’s program to help kidney patients’ family and friends help the patients find a living donor
  • Some African Americans being wary of organ donation, specifically, but sometimes the health care system, generally
  • A transplant center’s setting up a paired donation program, which enables donors and recipients who are not a good match to swap with another pair so as to find a successful match for each pair
  • Solo camping with your dog
  • Comparing current and brand-new rules on allocation of livers from deceased donors
  • New approaches to preventing post-donation constipation in donors
  • Signing up as an organ donor whether or not you choose to have a little heart on your driver’s license
  • A grieving family arguing about whether to honor a young person’s wishes to be an organ donor
  • A young donor concerned about pregnancy, wanting to participate in a study to help provide the answers that elude her now
  • Comparing two surgeons’ hand sizes
  • Camping with the Girl Scouts

It was getting late for a weekday evening, and everyone else had a drive home, but I’ve no doubt we could have found lots more to talk about.

Published by Carol Offen

I'm a living kidney donor--I donated to my son in 2006--who happens to be a wimp (I faint at flu shots). I'm passionate about encouraging living donation, and I figure that if I can donate a kidney, you probably can, too. I'm also a professional writer and editor. I recently co-authored a book, with a kidney recipient, titled The Insider's Guide to Living Kidney Donation: Everything You Need to Know If You Give (or Get) the Greatest Gift.

Published