GIFTED: A Novel and Now a Docuseries

As part of National Donate Life Month, I’ve written recently about the public’s preconceived erroneous notions about organ donation–both living and deceased. These myths tragically keep the numbers of donors down and the number of needless deaths up.

More than 100,000 people in this country need a lifesaving organ, for most of them a kidney. Thousands die each year while waiting–or are removed from the list because they have become too sick to benefit from a transplant.

I just read a memorable novel that’s been on my radar for a long time (I remember meeting the author, Robert Horsey, in 2018 at the Living Donor Rally at the Bean in Chicago). The book is drawn from his professional experience as a critical care registered nurse who has served as an organ procurement coordinator. That’s the compassionate individual who coordinates the entire process, making delicate arrangements, and sensitively communicating with the donor’s family and physicians and the organ recipient.

An important and sobering subject, and Horsey’s story is engaging, relatable, moving, and educational.

The novel Gifted was published in 2017, but the topic is timeless. And now, with a docuseries, it’s very timely.

For Gifted: The Docuseries, Horsey has teamed up with award-winning video producers and filmmakers. Their Gifted Productions company was created to educate the general public about organ donation through real people’s stories. The docuseries has five episodes. The team hopes to dispel myths so often reinforced by feature films and popular television series, and, ultimately, to increase the numbers of organ donors.

Episode One follows the inspirational story of the donor family of Heather Miller, who tragically died soon after her graduation from West Virginia University.

A public screening is scheduled for July 2024 at the Transplant Games in Birmingham, Alabama. Gifted has had a few private showings in different states, and more are being scheduled. For information or to donate to its fundraising partner, The Maddog Strong Foundation public 501(c)(3) nonprofit, go to Gifted Productions.

For related posts, resources, and information on The Insider’s Guide to Living Kidney Donation, be sure to explore the rest of my website.

Donate Life–In Any Way You Can

As a living donor, I’ve chosen to focus the majority of my posts on the lesser-known subject of living donation (most recently, preconceived notions about donors). I haven’t written much about the other kind of organ donation—that is, after death. It’s one of those sobering subjects that often make people uncomfortable (I used to be one of them).

That said, I’m going to give it a try here anyway and hope that you’ll keep reading. If you’ve read many of my blog posts, you probably have noticed that no matter what I’m writing about, I prefer a light touch and maybe go for a smile or two. So I’m not going to berate anyone who has not already signed up to be a donor. And I promise you I’m not going to drone on about how important it is and how it’s our duty to society yadayadayada.

You already know that, right? (If not, I might note here that more than 100,000 people in this country are waiting for a lifesaving organ—most of them for a kidney—and about 17 people die each day because they didn’t get one in time.)

So what am I going to do here? I’m just going to ask a few simple questions:

1-What percentage of people in this country do you suppose die in a way that even makes it possible for their organs to be donated?

2-If a registered organ donor is dying in a hospital, do you imagine that the doctors and nurses will throw in the towel that much sooner?

3-Are you afraid you might not be “completely dead” when they get ready to recover your organs?

Answers:

Less than 1% (If you’re stunned by that news, you’re not alone. Years ago my guess would have been less than half, but maybe 20% or 30%, but I honestly had no idea.) In other words, the pool is very small.
First of all, they don’t even know—or care—whether you’re a donor or not. Their only concern is saving you, their patient (remember “first, do no harm”?). Secondly, transplant teams don’t get involved until after death is pronounced. In fact, most deceased donors actually come from hospitals that don’t even have transplant centers.
Lots of tests are done—even more than usual–to make absolutely sure that someone is in fact brain dead.

So, if you’ve read this far, thank you! If you weren’t already signed up, I hope this post has given you something to think about and maybe you’ll go to organdonor.gov–or any of a dozen or more sites (don’t wait to renew your driver’s license!)–to register. If you’re already registered, please share this post with others who may not be or who might know someone who would like to share it.

For related posts, resources, and information on The Insider’s Guide to Living Kidney Donation, be sure to explore the rest of my website.

Living Donors Are….

If you finished the statement by saying “saints,” then you’re just the reader I’m looking for. I want to dispel that very idea! Please read on.

How about living donors are…”risk takers”? That one too.

You see, so many people have preconceived notions about us living donors, that I think it gets in the way of more people even considering the possibility of doing it themselves.

With nearly 100,000 people waiting years for a deceased-donor kidney, and more than a dozen dying each day while waiting, we clearly need to increase the fairly static number of living donors: roughly 6,000 each year. The first step, as always, is information–we need to give a clearer picture of what living donors are and are not so that people don’t automatically take themselves out of the running. After that, I just want people to have an open mind as they continue to inform themselves about the process.

I’m neither a saint nor a risk taker, and most living donors I know (and I know plenty!) aren’t either. And so, in honor of Living Donor Day today (April 3), I’m dusting off a blog post about these myths and a Medium article on this very subject. Hope you’ll check them out and share them.

For related posts and information on my book, The Insider’s Guide to Living Kidney Donation, be sure to explore the rest of my website.

A Very Productive Day on Capitol Hill

I just figured out that I’ve now participated in more than thirty advocacy (aka lobbying) meetings for the kidney community, mostly at the federal level. My recent meetings in DC for the National Kidney Foundation’s Kidney Patient Summit definitely stand out. I thought I’d share some observations.

At their worst–perish the thought!–such meetings risk being dry, one-sided recitations of our “asks” (often cosponsoring legislation, signing on to a letter, voting to increase research funding) while a well-meaning but harried staffer listens quietly, taking notes, followed by our rushed awkward efforts to “tell our stories” before the staffer, obviously distracted by more pressing obligations, moves to end the meeting early.

Fortunately, the only ones I’ve ever had that were close to that scenario occurred years ago on Zoom, because of COVID, often without video. (I kept hoping that the disembodied voice was more engaged than it sounded and wishing desperately for a little eye contact to have a better idea if our message was “getting through.”)

At their best, though, such as one our North Carolina team had recently with a seasoned Senate staffer, Garrett Daniel (Senator Thom Tillis’s legislative assistant), they can be exhilarating. Here are a few illustrations.

Instead of being one sided, they’re natural interactive conversations that happily go off script. I’d been in several excellent Zoom meetings with Garrett since 2020, but this was our first in-person meeting. He’s always engaged, well informed, and often alludes to other ideas in the senator’s pipeline–such as a plan for a framework for paid leave for caregivers–that dovetail with our efforts.

LA Garrett Daniel, standing next to name plaque, with our NC team this year (left to right: Alan Levy, me, Wendy Glod, Dre Roundtree, kneeling, and his wife, Necole Roundtree.

We all participated in the lively discussion, often, in response to his questions, mentioning additional aspects of our asks that we hadn’t touched on in our elevator pitch. After hearing comments from a kidney transplant recipient’s wife, Garrett was the one to raise the subject of the burden on the caregiver not just in the home but in terms of job issues.

He listened to our personal stories and then often gently asked questions to get a clearer picture of what our experiences entailed. In fact, when he prompted one of our team members to elaborate on her long journey to get a kidney transplant, she shared important and wrenching details that the rest of us hadn’t heard.

Because her insurance company would only cover her numerous appointments for essential tests if she went to a center three hours each way from her home in Charlotte–instead of one just fifteen minutes away–she had to wait more than two years before she could move ahead with the transplant she desperately needed. Then, after she went through all her testing and was just one test away from being listed for a transplant, she got a peritonitis infection–so the transplant was further delayed.

At the end of the meeting, in addition to concern, Garrett also offered critical pragmatic support. For example, Senator Tillis is already a cosponsor of the Living Donor Protection Act, so our ask in his case was to help us get a committee hearing for the bill. Garrett’s boss is not on one of the committees in question, so Garrett offered to reach out to his counterparts in the office of NC Senator Budd (who is) to bolster our efforts. He planned to do the same with other offices regarding another bill the kidney community is supporting, to help expand access to home dialysis.

It was late afternoon when we left the office, and in between meetings we’d been walking up and down long, imposing corridors and all over Capitol Hill for hours. Our feet hurt. But after meetings like this, everyone on our team left feeling energized.

For related posts and information on my book, The Insider’s Guide to Living Kidney Donation, be sure to explore the rest of my website.

ASKing Congress–for a “Friend”

My bags are packed, and I’m ready to approach federal legislators and/or their staffers again along with other advocates from the National Kidney Foundation. As usual, we have very important asks.

If you’ve read even a few of my posts since I launched this site in 2019, you know that I’ve been lobbying for the Living Donor Protection Act–both on Capitol Hill and in my state, North Carolina–for several years. So, yes, our number-one ask is for this session of Congress to finally move ahead with this bipartisan (yes!), noncontroversial, bare-bones legislation that’s been kicking around Congress since 2014.

This bill to prohibit discrimination by insurers against living donors–through higher premiums or coverage refusal–gets reintroduced every session. There may be a new sponsor, if one of the originals is no longer in office, more cosponsors…and then it sits. It’s yet to have a committee hearing, much less a vote. This shouldn’t be so hard.

The second ask is a newer one that could benefit so many people currently on dialysis. The majority (about 85%) of dialysis patients receive hemodialysis at a center, where they go three times a week for three to four hour sessions. Not everyone lives near a center and may need to travel more than an hour by car or city bus(es) to get there. We want Congress to improve access to home dialysis for patients who choose to do it, by providing funds for training and professionals to actually go to people’s homes in the first few months to help them learn how. It could be a game changer by enabling someone to do dialysis on their own schedule and even facilitate their being able to fit sessions around their work hours.

The third ask is about modernizing and improving the national transplant system that allocates deceased organs. Nearly 100,000 people are on national waiting lists (most of them for a kidney), and most wait several years. The system is extraordinarily complex and there are appalling instances of wasted organs. Most everyone agrees it needs to be more efficient and transparent, so more people can get a transplant after a shorter wait. Congress passed an act to modernize and improve the system last year. What we need now is for lawmakers to provide the necessary $100 million funding to carry it out.

The fourth ask, and in the long run arguably the one with the most lasting potential benefit, concerns early screening for kidney disease. My symbolic “friend” in the kidney community probably isn’t even aware of being among the estimated 37 million Americans with chronic kidney disease. Yup, 90% of that population haven’t even been diagnosed yet and don’t know that their kidneys are gradually–sometimes not so gradually–losing function.

Confused? Let me clarify the difference between chronic kidney disease and kidney failure. Diseased kidneys slowly lose function over years–even decades–before they reach kidney failure, during which time there may well be no obvious symptoms. Once they fail, though, the only way to save someone’s life is with a transplant, or, in the meantime, dialysis. People with diabetes and/or high blood pressure are at the highest risk of developing kidney disease. So if doctors routinely screened these patients for kidney disease (with a simple blood test), millions of lives could be saved.

With early detection, not only can that disease progression be slowed, it can often even be reversed, through behavioral changes–exercise, healthy diet, hydration–and medication. We’re asking members of Congress to sign a letter in support of official guidelines for screening.

These are pretty straightforward noncontroversial asks. I’ll let you know how it goes.

For related posts and information on my book, The Insider’s Guide to Living Kidney Donation, be sure to explore the rest of my website.

“Ms. Smith” Goes Back to Washington

Last year at this time I excitedly announced here that I’d be going to Capitol Hill–in person!–for legislative meetings as part of the National Kidney Foundation’s Kidney Patient Summit. Because of the pandemic, the previous several summits had been virtual–important, productive, yes, but no substitute for the real thing.

I surprised myself by writing that though the logistics of getting from point A to point B, and so on, made me nervous, I realized that the actual meetings didn’t phase me. I explained that multiple trainings and meetings had driven home the message that personal stories of kidney donation and transplant are what make the biggest impression on legislators and their staff.

Last year’s team: Necole & Dre Roundtree, me, Alan Levy.

I’ve been telling mine (about donating my kidney to my adult son) for years to anyone who’ll listen.

This year I’m happy to say I’ll be going back to Capitol Hill for another in-person summit. This time I’ve been invited to also participate in a separate smaller group of advocates for a “series of deep-dive policy discussions” before the summit begins. I’m very excited to be honored with a seat at the table to consider critical issues, such as the status of the nationwide allocation system for deceased-donor organs in the wake of recent reform legislation, obstacles in furthering legislation to improve access to home dialysis, and the increased attention to addressing rare kidney diseases.

Stay tuned for more information.

For related posts and information on my book, The Insider’s Guide to Living Kidney Donation, be sure to explore the rest of my website

More New Year’s Resolutions

Every year before I make new new year’s resolutions, I try to look back to see how I did on last year’s. Alas, they’re almost always still relevant. I don’t think I’m unusual in that respect. I know that starting next week, for example, my Zumba classes and the workout area of my gym are going to be jammed. I used to be concerned but soon saw that in a matter of weeks, the crowds invariably start to thin, and by late February they’re always back to near-usual levels.

So, I thought I’d dust off my old new year’s resolution blog post and share these again. They’re relevant for everyone–if you’re a donor or never plan to be one.

Whether you’re being evaluated as a living donor already, or just thinking about it, here are a few suggestions that will benefit you and your kidneys–wherever they happen to be.

1- Take good care of yourself (and your kidneys).

–Exercise regularly.

–Get plenty of rest.

–Stay hydrated.

–Eat a healthy diet.

2-For your safety and your future recipient’s, be sure to get the latest Covid booster as soon as you’re eligible. Transplant recipients and anyone else who is immunocompromised, such as people with cancer or autoimmune diseases, can’t count on full protection from the vaccines. It’s all the more important that the rest of us add that protection.

3-Avoid ibuprofen and other NSAIDs—they’re hard on the kidneys for anyone—particularly important if you’re a donor or recipient.

4-Learn about kidney function. Kidneys are amazing!

5-Read up on all facets of kidney donation—for example, order a copy of The Insider’s Guide to Living Kidney Donation.

To all of you and your loved ones: a happy and healthy new year!

For related posts and information on my book, The Insider’s Guide to Living Kidney Donation, be sure to explore the rest of my website.

Gifting Books about the Greatest Gift?

My tastes in reading have always been pretty varied. I was never much of a history buff, but I discovered a back door through well-written, riveting memoirs and biographies. Similarly, though I don’t have a science background, I’ve learned so much about organ donation and transplantation through authors’ personal and professional experiences. In recent years I’ve enjoyed reading a wide range of social sciences, which have reminded me how much I enjoyed my college psych, philosophy, and sociology courses.

So I thought I’d share here some of my favorite donation-related book titles, in case you’re looking for a holiday gift for someone who has either a personal or professional interest in organ donation–or just a curious mind about a very serious and fascinating public health crisis. To me, these are classics (yes, of course, I’ve included my book) that belong on everybody’s bookshelf (listed alphabetically):

Because of Organ Donation: A Collection of Inspiring Stories Celebrating the Gift of Life–Brenda E. Cortez This poignant anthology looks at organ donation from diverse perspectives: living donors, families of deceased donors, and recipients. I wrote about it in an earlier blog post; the author has since published more donation-related anthologies (learn about her children’s books here).

The Fear Factor: How One Emotion Connects Altruists, Psychopaths, and Everyone In-Between–Abigail Marsh Marsh is a psychologist/neuroscientist with a special interest in altruism. She has done brain studies of nondirected donors and psychopaths. Her very accessible explanations, relatable anecdotes, and fine writing combine to make this a fascinating and memorable read.

The Insider’s Guide to Living Kidney Donation: Everything You Need to Know If You Give (or Get) the Greatest Gift—Carol Offen and Elizabeth Crais. Read what reviewers and readers have to say.

Kidney to Share—Martha Gershun and John D. Lantos. In alternating chapters with Dr. Lantos, a physician and a bioethicist, Gershun vividly and insightfully describes her personal experience of donating. She candidly shares both her gratification as a donor and her frustration in contending with the unimaginable obstacles on her path. Both authors raise thought-provoking points on how the system could and should work better.

When Death Becomes Life: Notes from a Transplant Surgeon–-Joshua D. Mezrich. Dr. Mezrich takes us inside the entire process of transplantation. He movingly describes talking with the families of deceased donors before ever going into the OR. He writes sensitively and evocatively of his experiences with patients and colleagues–for me, the highlight of the book. The first half, on the history of transplantation and the medical breakthroughs, is fascinating reading, though the medical details can be heavy lifting for some readers.

For related posts and information on my book, The Insider’s Guide to Living Kidney Donation, be sure to explore the rest of my website.

HOLD Act = Aid for More Would-be Donors

If you’ve read any of my blog posts about financial assistance for living donors, you know that one of my pet peeves (boy, is that a euphemism!) is the practice of making aid for donors dependent on their recipient‘s income, as has been the policy through the federal National Living Donor Assistance Center (NLDAC).

So I was delighted to see a bipartisan piece of legislation introduced in Congress last month that would shift the emphasis and could directly lead to more people becoming living organ donors. The Honor Our Living Donors (HOLD) Act (H.R. 6020) would help more donors qualify for reimbursement from NLDAC for lost wages and travel and caregiving expenses–based on the donor’s own financial status. (Fortunately, there are currently other options–see my Resources section–but a federal assistance program needs to be available to everyone.)

As the mother of my recipient, I know both sides of this very special relationship. We were fortunate that I was able to donate to my son. If that had not been possible, I can’t imagine the extra emotional and financial strain that trying to help a donor would have put on our family. The obvious potential for tension and discomfort (for both parties) inherent in this perverse system is not only unfair but also counterproductive. Thousands of lives are lost each year because so many patients’ potential donors decline to donate because of these obstacles.

If you want to help living donors–and thereby kidney patients–please contact your member of Congress now to help build support for this urgently needed bill (HR 6020). And if your representative happens to be either Rep. Jay Obernolte (R-Calif), who introduced the bill, or Rep. Suzan DelBene (D-WA), who cosponsored it–be sure to thank them.

For related posts and information on my book, The Insider’s Guide to Living Kidney Donation, be sure to explore the rest of my website.

Seeking Input on Kidney Website Content

It’s been more than four years since I launched this kidney donation website. It’s expanded, the numbers of visits and hits have surpassed my wildest dreams—but it still looks the same. Someday I’d really like to give it a fresh look. I’ve learned a lot over the past few years and would love to make it more attractive and functional.

But you know what, I feel the same way about our backyard, and, despite my best intentions, it still hasn’t happened.

The website won’t take quite as much work—or, fortunately, money—but I know it’s not going to happen anytime soon. In the meantime, though, I thought I’d look at the content and consider small changes I could make to various elements.

So, I’m going to start with the Resources page and the FAQs. I’d very much appreciate it if you would take a look at both and see if you think I’ve missed something important that would benefit would-be living donors or others visiting the site. Or, for that matter, if you think I should consider replacing any of the FAQs or organizations on the resources list.

Please send me your suggestions! (And if you have any tips on low-maintenance, inexpensive things I can do for our backyard…)

Many thanks!

For related posts and information on my book, The Insider’s Guide to Living Kidney Donation, be sure to explore the rest of my website.