Please share this page and if you’re curious about donation or why we’re looking for a living donor, see our about page. Please share this page – the more people we reach the greater the chances that she can find someone! If you’re curious about donation or why we’re looking for a living donor, see our first post + our faq below.
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Why is a transplant better than dialysis? Hemodialysis needs to be performed several times a week, while peritoneal dialysis needs to be done every day. Since this process “scrubs” your blood artificially, it tends to leave the person very weak and tired. It’s also dangerous to remain on dialysis for a long time since waste products build up in the blood between dialysis sessions. Furthermore, Nataliya has narrow veins, which causes the fistula necessary for dialysis to fail or, in the best scenario, have a high risk of failure. It would also broaden the range of foods Nataliya is able to eat, and enable her to work at a normal schedule, which would be enormous improvements to her quality of life. Isn’t it really hard to find a match for organ donation? However, Nataliya’s donor would not need to be a direct match. Organ donation networks now do something called paired donation. In paired donation, a donor and recipient are matched with another incompatible donor and recipient pair, and the kidneys are exchanged between the pairs, so two lives are saved at once! But why a living donor? We know that the clinical outcomes of a kidney recipient with a living donation are much better than receiving one from the waitlist (where the donor has passed away) – kidneys from living donors last twice as long. This is for a few reasons: less time waiting for a kidney so the recipient is healthier, the donated kidney is likely to be healthier, and the match is better since the procedure is planned. What about the health of the donor? Firstly, people interested in living donation are thoroughly screened – donors cannot have a history of diabetes, cancer, liver disease, or anything else that would put the donor at risk during surgery – so the medical team tries their best to prevent any harm to the donor. After donation, there is a recovery period. While the time is variable, it’s usually a few months before the donor is fully healed. Living a normal life with one kidney is fully possible, but should the donor need a kidney transplant later, they are placed at the top of the waitlist. Who pays for kidney donation surgery? (work in progress)
The recipient’s (Nataliya’s) insurance will cover the cost of evaluation and donor operation. The donor will not be responsible for any part of the transplant evaluation or surgery and will meet with a financial coordinator during the evaluation visit to further answer any questions about the process.
