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Any double donors out there: liver and kidney?
Transplants | Last Active: Nov 25, 2023 | Replies (55)Comment receiving replies
I just read recent posts on this discussion and was blown away by what I read! I decided I had to add my 2 cents worth. I was surprised to find that I previously posted on this thread (August 31,2019)! I’ll try and summarize it:
My daughter donated a kidney to her grandfather (my father-in-law) in 2003.
Flash forward to now. I am Stage 4 CKD and have been told I will need a kidney transplant at some point.
(I’ve been approved & accepted for kidney transplant at Mayo, Rochester. Been looking for a living donor.)
My daughter contacted Mayo, Rochester and inquired about some kind of paired living liver/kidney donation on my behalf. She was thinking she could donate part of her liver to someone who needed that in exchange for a living donor kidney for me. Gotta love her for thinking outside of the box! Well her inquiry was completely shut down.
1) She was told living liver donations were only done when donor and recipient were related.
2) She was told paired donations were restricted to the same type of organ.
3) She was told that she would not be considered for living liver donation because she had already donated a kidney.
Now it sounds like people are accomplishing the very thing that my daughter proposed years ago!
Replies to "I just read recent posts on this discussion and was blown away by what I read!..."
When a friend offered to donate part of her liver, I found this website helpful - https://unos.org/transplant/living-donation/. Apologies, if you already know about it. There is a short questionnaire that my transplant hospital had my prospective donor complete. However, I got too sick so moved up the list for a deceased donor. My understanding, however, is that hospitals vary on how they handle living donor options.
@cehunt57 Thanks to your daughter for her donation! I am always in awe of people who make that choice to donate and are so selfless in their decisions. Back when she asked about living liver donation/paired exchange, Mayo required liver donors to have a significant relationship with their recipient. That has changed, and now we have a liver nondirect donation program as well as a liver paired exchange program. Since the liver and kidney recipients are on separate lists, I don't know if it's possible to donate a kidney in exchange for a liver, but we definitely now allow liver patients to donate to people they don't know. You all can find more info about these programs here: https://www.mayoclinic.org/tests-procedures/living-donor-transplant/about/pac-20384787.
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Oh, my goodness! No, donors do not have to be related in any way to their recipients (I wasn't/am not), and apparently being a living liver donor does not prohibit me from donating a kidney, since I'm getting ready to do just that in about two weeks, if all goes well. Not sure if being a kidney donor FIRST would prohibit someone from donating a portion of their liver later, but I suppose it's possible (for example, they will be taking my left kidney since there is too much scar tissue on the right side, due to my previous liver donation, to be able to take the right kidney; did your daughter donate her right kidney, by chance??). CEHunt, are you enrolled in a Paired Kidney Exchange Program (you would have to have a willing donor who has been evaluated/worked up as a donor and has been found to be an unsuitable match for you, but who is still willing to donate a kidney to someone else. The two of you would have to enroll in the program as a pair)?? I know that my kidney will be traveling to Mayo Clinic in Minn for transplantation; it would be so cool if it were going to YOU! hugs! <3