As I wrote in my last post, singer/songwriter Daryl Hall of Hall and Oates, recently had a kidney transplant from a living donor, and said he was already feeling much better a few weeks later.
His donor? All we still know is that it was a “very kind and generous living donor.”
If you have been speculating on Hall’s donor’s identity, let’s test a few assumptions–and clarify a few things about living donation while we’re at it.
What do we already know about the donor?
1-His donor needn’t be a family member—not even a distant relative. Anti-rejection meds are so advanced now that a good match is far less important, and more and more living donors are not blood relatives. (Also, if a potential donor isn’t the right blood type, it’s possible to do a kidney swap with another donor-recipient pair who don’t match each other, but there was no mention of paired donation.)
2-Hall’s donor isn’t necessarily a man. I know many women who have donated to their husband, father, son (I donated to mine), friend–whatever. Though a very large man might have a kidney that’s too big for a small woman, and a small woman’s kidney might be too small for a very big man, for the most part, male-female donor pairs are not a problem.
3-The donor also needn’t be white. It’s not uncommon for donor-recipient pairs to be of different races.
4-Hall’s donor needn’t be young. I was 58 when I donated my kidney, and living donors over 50 are increasingly common—we now represent more than a third of living donors. Some transplant centers have a cutoff of about 70 for donors, but most decide on a case-by-case basis, depending on the kidney’s health and the donor’s overall health. I personally know people who donated in their mid-70s.
If you’ve read this far, you now know that we can’t assume much about the singer’s donor. So, what can we assume? Just this: the individual is a very healthy, very caring adult.
I wish them both as positive an outcome as my son and I have had—and we’re now 20 years post transplant. I really do hope they talk about it publicly to help clear up some more assumptions about living donation. Maybe doing so will encourage others to consider being living donors to meet the tremendous need and shorten the wait for a lifesaving organ. That’s ultimately what my co-author and I hope to do with our book, “The Greatest Gift: The Insider’s Guide to Living Kidney Donation.”