November 20, 2006
Monday
El Milagro: We’re on an “off” schedule this week because of turkey day and the center being closed on Thursday. So, I am coming in on Monday, Wednesday, and Saturday this week. Diane stuck me today, rather quickly and roughly… I can tell when she has something else on her mind cause she just rushes through the procedure as if I’m a manikin.
On the ABC News tonight there is a story about a five-way kidney swap. Herman watched it with me and I wondered how they can do this, cause I thought that kind of swap thing (kidney paired donation) was against the law. But, according to the article following the news report*:
“According to statistics from the United Network for Organ Sharing, 68,934 patients in the United States are currently on the waiting list for donated kidneys. Because of a shortage of donors, 3,886 patients — more than 10 a day — died in 2004 while waiting for a kidney, according to statistics compiled by the National Kidney Foundation.
“Experts said chain-reaction surgeries like this one could help solve the problem.
"This represents a significant step in advancing our ability to identify living kidney donors for potential transplant recipients," said Dr. Bryan Becker, section chief of nephrology at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. "This also demonstrates a significant institutional commitment from Johns Hopkins to align the necessary resources to do this."
Now I have to go back and research what it is that is actually against the law. Maybe this operation was possible through the work of “altruistic donors” wanting to donate kidneys, rather than kidney transplant patients finding the donors or something. I’ll report more about this as I find out.
That’s all for today.
Notes: In at 75.6 and out at 71.6 Kg.
* Childs, D. (2006) Doctors perform historic five way swap. Retrieved online November 21 from ABC News at http://abcnews.go.com/Health/story?id=2668053&page=1
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