Well I hesitate to discuss how I feel, here, but I’ll give it a go.
While I was waiting for my transplant (kidney), a number of my friends and family wanted to explore other ways to make my time on dialysis more manageable and my future more secure. I’m short on a reference, but I was told at the time that around 10% of people on the renal TX list die before a transplant becomes available. One person, who was a quite good friend, argued long and hard for the foreign purchase option. At the time, there was a deal of publicity about the harvesting of organs from Chinese execution victims. My friend felt this would be sensible; I was appalled. My father made great efforts to secure charitable funding for a dialysis machine in order that I could dialyse at home and increase my independence. When we approached my hospital with this suggestion, my renal consultant said “Lovely. We would be delighted if another machine were made available to the unit. However, your daughter will have to wait in turn until one comes available for her to use. I will not have people in my unit who have advantages over the person in the next bed.” I agreed. Eventually, I got a machine at home. I didn’t jump the queue.
The transplant list is a mysterious thing. It is commonly claimed that it works on the basis of tissue matching, and organs are offered to those whose match is best. This is not entirely true. While it works like this in general terms, there are times when a patient who is becoming acutely ill is offered a non-ideal match. With heart transplants, this is more open, with campaigns often made on behalf of specific patients. Likewise bone marrow. With kidneys, acutely ill patients are sometimes offered imperfect organs, because the need is dire. This is what happened to me. My science will fall down greatly, here, but I will try to explain tissue matching as it was explained to me. Very simply, tissue is matched on three criteria marked by numbers 0, 1 or 2. A genetic twin would have a 0:0:0 match, and variants thereof for suitability for transplant. The closer to this you can get, the less immune suppressive drugs are required to maintain the transplant. Anti-rejection drugs tend to be, sadly, nephrotoxic. I was offered a kidney with a 2:2:2 match, and it was explained to me that this was the minimum they were prepared to risk. I was given a 60% chance of getting through without rejection. Very seriously, I was offered the opportunity to refuse the organ, although it was explained to me that it was felt that the situation was urgent. I mulled it over for about half a second.
Being on dialysis is a bit like watching your friends get old. Your faculties deteriorate very slowly and in such a way that you hardly notice the change. You always feel ‘normal’, but you are just less able. Having a kidney transplant is like having the lights switched on after a long darkness. In brutal terms, if your kidney works immediately (as mine did; I pissed 18 litres in 24 hours), it’s like recovering from the worst hangover in history. Twenty four hours after surgery I suddenly realised I could smell again, and hear things clearly, and think clearly and see properly. It is a quite amazing experience.
From the moment I woke up, I knew that the kidney in my groin was mine. It is not borrowed. It is not a loan. It was a gift. I never, not for one second, felt that I had had another person’s vital organ in my body. Mine. A life saving gift. I never tried to find out much about the donor. When I was lying in bed before the operation I saw the courier arrive with his picnic box, and I knew that it had my kidney in it.
He was a year older than me; he lived in Cardiff; he died of a brain haemorrhage. He gave me a gift.
You see, astrojax asked the question “practicality vs selfishness”. I love that man who gave me his organ, although I never knew him. He, and his family, were selfless. I had no innate right to his kidney; neither will I have an innate right to the next organ I will (hopefully) get, now that his is failing. He has given me seven years of life, and I am proud that I have made good use of those years.
I have no right to expect another person to do that for me. I had no rights over his body. I have been kept alive for 30 years by artificial means, and I am mightily grateful for that. Natural Law, if such a thing exists, would have seen me off as a child. I’ve spent large portions of my life nose to nose with Death, and I’m not afraid. If somebody gives me more life, I will do the best I can with it.
Sorry. I’ve just dirtied Head Shop. |
