- Jun 23, 2002
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Okay, the deal is that someone I just read about on the Internet (originally from Medford, OR) is dying of the same illness I have. His lungs are so bad, and the prospects for finding a dead donor so slim, that the docs have basically given up unless two live donors with the same bloodtype (AB*) can be located. On a Cystic Fibrosis group I read, someone posted the following impassioned plea:
Unlike myself, it's not inability to pay for a transplant that seems to be his problem, but a lack of available organs. No one in his family has compatible ones, and they've been appealing far and wide locally through the media, renting billboards, even. But it's been a fruitless search, since no one has come forward.
I don't expect anyone to be willing to part with a lung lobe easily. It's a harder procedure than a kidney donation, even though it doesn't usually have any lasting ill effects and, from what I've read, regrows. But still, you never know, so I doubt it'd hurt to ask whether anyone would be willing to make such a sacrifice, so that this young man could live... even more unlikely gifts have been made by strangers. (The recipient's family or insurance pays all medical and travel costs associated with live donors, of course.)
You can read more information at NiceLungs.com. From what I can tell, he is currently at a transplant center in Boston, as this CBS4 story reports.
I apologize to the mods if this isn't a "worthy" news story, but it infuriates me whenever I hear of anyone, potentially in the prime of their life, near death because the majority of us never sign that donor card.
* Yes, this is the "universal recipient," but transplant doctors, from what I hear, are far more strict about compatibility than you'd need in a transfusion. Only exact matches are accepted, and for those, this is a rare blood type.
Unlike myself, it's not inability to pay for a transplant that seems to be his problem, but a lack of available organs. No one in his family has compatible ones, and they've been appealing far and wide locally through the media, renting billboards, even. But it's been a fruitless search, since no one has come forward.
I don't expect anyone to be willing to part with a lung lobe easily. It's a harder procedure than a kidney donation, even though it doesn't usually have any lasting ill effects and, from what I've read, regrows. But still, you never know, so I doubt it'd hurt to ask whether anyone would be willing to make such a sacrifice, so that this young man could live... even more unlikely gifts have been made by strangers. (The recipient's family or insurance pays all medical and travel costs associated with live donors, of course.)
You can read more information at NiceLungs.com. From what I can tell, he is currently at a transplant center in Boston, as this CBS4 story reports.
I apologize to the mods if this isn't a "worthy" news story, but it infuriates me whenever I hear of anyone, potentially in the prime of their life, near death because the majority of us never sign that donor card.
* Yes, this is the "universal recipient," but transplant doctors, from what I hear, are far more strict about compatibility than you'd need in a transfusion. Only exact matches are accepted, and for those, this is a rare blood type.
I'm willing to donate, but I'm either an A+ or O+ since that's what my parents are. Would a universal donor work with a universal recipient, or do I have to have AB?
