I just saw that this site’s views for April were the second highest since I launched the website 14 months ago. I noticed something else: the record month, October, happened to feature the same blog I posted about last week on Twitter and in a couple of living kidney donor support groups on Facebook: “Just How Unlikely Is It for a Donor to Need a Transplant?” (spoiler alert: very!). The obvious explanation here is that everyone loves good news, but the less obvious realization was that so many kidney donors didn’t already know that.
It’s important for living donors and potential living donors to have all the facts, including the bad, of course. But informed consent means it’s just as important that everyone know the encouraging news about living donation without sugarcoating it.
Another example of “neglected good news” is that the lower kidney function that’s common among living donors does not mean we have stage 2 or 3 kidney disease. eGFR, the scale that estimates overall kidney function and level of chronic kidney disease, really speaks of people, usually with two kidneys, whose kidney function is in decline. Donors, on the other hand, once they stabilize after donation, hit a new normal, which, in the absence of other indicators, is perfectly fine.
More important is the creatinine reading, which indicates level of toxins and reflects how well the kidney is working. For example, nearly 14 years after donating to my son, I still have an excellent creatinine level (0.85 on a recent test)–not just excellent for a donor, excellent for anyone!
I’m all for learning all the information that’s out there, and hope to see long-term lifetime follow-ups on all living donors. But in the meantime, we can all use a little reassurance these days. Let’s take it where we can.
Could You Be a Kidney Donor? What to Expect If You Give the Greatest Gift 