#49. The designated recipient - March 2012

Lately I’ve been thinking a lot about the person who will receive my kidney.  What are their thoughts and feelings as they live with kidney disease?  They will get the call that they are going to receive a transplant, from a live donor. How will that affect them?

They will  know that the person donating the kidney is an undesignated donor.  They will know that somewhere in this community there is someone who will have an operation and give a piece of themselves to save an unknown person’s life.  That is the type of community they are living in, a community where we save each other’s lives. 

Maybe the person with kidney disease has parents, or children or a partner who are not a match, who would try to save their loved one’s life, but they can’t.  What will it mean to them that someone they don’t know is willing to make a gift like this?

Maybe this person will think that.  Or maybe they won’t .  Maybe they are mad at the world because they’ve been given such a hard road to travel, a rough road with kidney disease.   Maybe they will just feel relieved.  Maybe they won’t think very much about the person who gave them a kidney.  There are angry, ungrateful people in the world.  I’ve been an angry, ungrateful person sometimes.