As a living kidney donor, I improved the lives of others
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In April, I became a living kidney donor.
The best reaction I received on my decision to donate was from my brother, a doctoral student in health policy and management at the University of California, Los Angeles.
“Congratulations! Not to mention, CMS owes you big time,” he told me.
My brother was referring to one of the most powerful talking points in nephrology policy: Kidney transplants are transformative for patients, families and health care. All kidney transplants, regardless of transplant type or organ quality, are cost-effective compared with dialysis. Spending on kidney transplants is associated with better survival and improved quality of life compared with maintenance dialysis.
Source: Miriam Godwin
Decision to donate
The choice to donate was one of the easiest decisions of my life. Public policy is an exercise in evaluating challenging tradeoffs, maximizing the benefits of a policy and mitigating its consequences. For those of us who advocate for change on behalf of patients, the responsibility of transforming kidney care without doing harm can be a heavy burden.
Living donation included no such complexity. I knew the benefits to my recipient would be immense and the medical and psychological costs to me would be minor. The tradeoffs could not have been simpler.
My personal cost for donating a kidney was $160 total. That would cover three new pairs of pajamas and sweatpants I purchased in which to recover.
I learned that I could live with one kidney as a college student performing heminephrectomies on mice during a summer internship at the NIH. I knew I wanted to be a living donor right away, but it was not until more than a decade later when I had accepted a job with the National Kidney Foundation I had gained greater insight into the practicalities of donation and transplant. When I was trapped at home during the COVID-19 pandemic, feeling the crushing weight of the world’s grief, I decided to move forward with an altruistic donation.
Timeline
I began the living donor workup in November 2020. My surgery took place 5 months later at the MedStar Georgetown Transplant Institute.
I might have expected my memories from the afternoon after I woke up from surgery to be hazy, but they were not. I will never forget the flood of joy and gratitude for the opportunity to give something to the kidney patients I dearly love, even among the painful contraction of my shocked muscles and the awkwardness of having been catheterized, even not knowing to whom my kidney would go.
Thank you
I never know how to respond when someone thanks me for being a living donor. I feel as though I benefitted more from my donation than my recipient. Donating a kidney was one of the honors of my life. No doubt there are a range of experiences among living donors, but in speaking with others who have donated, I can say that many people’s experiences are similarly positive.
There is still work to do to make living donation a practical reality for more people. I am inspired by my colleagues at NKF who are hard at work eliminating barriers to living donation. Twenty states have enacted the Living Donor Protection Act, which prevents insurance companies from denying or limiting life, disability and long-term care insurance to living donors. The federal version of the bill gains steam every day.
Given I cannot be a living kidney donor twice, my job now is to do whatever I can to make living donation possible for others. I truly believe there is so much in living donation. Not just for recipients, but for donors too – for all of us.
- For more information:
- Miriam Godwin is the health policy director for the National Kidney Foundation. She can be reached at miriam.godwin@kidney.org.
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