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Recounting decades of kidney disease and near-milestone GFR decline, the author explains the difficulty of finding willing donors, the emotional limits of relationships, and the risks and tradeoffs of surgery. The narrative connects personal experience to patient safety, recalling past medical missteps and focusing on hope, awareness, and reliable care.",{"@graph":69,"@context":122},[70,84,105],{"@type":71,"itemListElement":72},"BreadcrumbList",[73,77,79,82],{"item":74,"name":75,"@type":76,"position":8},"https://docshare.wps.com","Home","ListItem",{"item":78,"name":9,"@type":76,"position":14},"https://docshare.wps.com/document/",{"item":80,"name":35,"@type":76,"position":81},"https://docshare.wps.com/document/healthcare/",3,{"item":83,"name":65,"@type":76,"position":19},"https://docshare.wps.com/document/giving-away-a-piece-of-yourself/456051/",{"url":83,"name":65,"@type":85,"image":86,"author":91,"headline":65,"publisher":94,"fileFormat":97,"inLanguage":63,"description":67,"dateModified":98,"datePublished":99,"encodingFormat":97,"isAccessibleForFree":100,"interactionStatistic":101},"DigitalDocument",{"url":87,"@type":88,"width":89,"height":90},"https://docshare.wps.com/thumbnails/giving-away-a-piece-of-yourself/456051.png","ImageObject",300,407,{"name":92,"@type":93},"Terk","Person",{"url":74,"name":95,"@type":96},"DocShare","Organization","application/pdf","2026-10-16","2026-09-30",true,{"@type":102,"interactionType":103,"userInteractionCount":19},"InteractionCounter",{"@type":104},"ViewAction",{"@type":106,"mainEntity":107},"FAQPage",[108,114,118],{"name":109,"@type":110,"acceptedAnswer":111},"Why does the author’s wife donate a kidney and what impact does it have?","Question",{"text":112,"@type":113},"Her donor nephrectomy is aimed at saving a stranger, giving that person hope and freedom from dialysis. The donation also changes the author’s situation by making him eligible for a living donor kidney when he later needs a transplant.","Answer",{"name":115,"@type":110,"acceptedAnswer":116},"How did the author try to find a kidney donor when his transplant was not imminent?",{"text":117,"@type":113},"He pursued potential donors gradually through private, serious one-to-one conversations. He also leveraged his own history as a registered bone marrow donor, hoping it might soften his kidney request.",{"name":119,"@type":110,"acceptedAnswer":120},"What does the author say about the challenge of asking someone for a kidney?",{"text":121,"@type":113},"Asking exposes hard boundaries in relationships. Many people are unwilling to accept surgery recovery and risk, cite their own health constraints, or feel uncomfortable with the request, leading to dwindling options.","https://schema.org",{"og:url":83,"og:type":124,"og:title":65,"og:site_name":95,"og:description":67},"article",{"robots":126,"canonical":83},"index,follow",{"doc_id":128,"site_id":62},456051,1791347064,{"code":4,"msg":5,"data":131},{"doc_id":128,"user_id":132,"nickname":92,"user_avatar":133,"doc_module":4,"category_id":34,"category_name":35,"doc_title":65,"doc_description":67,"doc_content":134,"file_id":135,"file_url":136,"file_type":137,"file_size":138,"view_count":19,"is_deleted":4,"is_public":8,"is_downloadable":8,"audit_status":8,"page_count":14,"language":139,"language_code":63,"site_id":62,"html_lang":63,"table_of_contents":140,"faqs":141,"seo_title":142,"seo_description":67,"update_tm":143,"read_time":24,"preview_page_count":4},1099525198933,"https://ap-avatar.wpscdn.com/davatar_155a257f0dc6eb9ab79c44ca47cae57d","Giving Away a Piece of Yourself  \nRichard Wenzel  \nKidney360 6: 1793–1794, 2025. doi: [https://doi.org/10.34067/KID.0000000976](https://doi.org/10.34067/KID.0000000976)  \nMy wife is, at this very moment, saving my life! Strictly speaking, she will save a stranger's life; once her donor nephrectomy surgery finishes, her kidney will be whisked to the local airport for a multihour flight to a west coast city. Shortly thereafter, her invaluable organ will be implanted, providing this stranger with something that they have likely lost: hope. Hope to escape dialysis' stranglehold. Hope to freely engage in life's marvels. Hope for the future. Stranger, please studiously safeguard my brave wife's treasured gift.  \nHer altruistic act has an additional reward and is the reason why she underwent a surgery that offers her no tangible health benefits but does offer morbidity and mortality risks; I now qualify to promptly receive a living donor kidney when I require a transplant. At some point in the future, I will be the stranger, wondering about the altruistic person to whom I am indebted for my preemptive transplant.  \nI was diagnosed with kidney disease during childhood, half a century ago. Thankfully, I have lived life on my own terms, without limitations, but all good things must end and a renal day of reckoning awaits me. I wish that my shrunken (as confirmed by magnetic resonance imaging) kidneys' innate function will sustain me long enough for xenotransplantation or an artificial kidney to become reality, sparing me from immunosuppression's bondage. Yet, I am keenly aware that life's wishes often do not come true.  \nNot quite a decade ago, my GFR hit the milestone of 20 ml/min, prompting my first visit to a transplant center. At the end of the visit, I was left with this primary question: was anyone that I know willing to donate? At that time, I believed that numerous potential donors existed: siblings, cousins, long-time friends, perhaps even a few coworkers, and, of course, my wife. Since my transplant was not imminent, I did not widely publicize my predicament, rather I sought donors slowly, via somber one-to-one conversations at opportune moments. I often began these conversations by pointing out that I have been a registered bone marrow donor for over three decades, hoping that my longstanding willingness to donate something might somehow soften my kidney request.  \nYet my conversations were repeatedly fruitless, and possible donors dwindled. Most were unwilling to  \nundergo surgery that required weeks of recovery and risked (however small) impairing their long-term capacity to care for their family. Some people cited their own health issues (previously unknown to me) that likely disqualified them. Despite my best efforts toward empathetic conversations, a few people seemed uncomfortable with my request; I apologized and did not press them further.  \nAsking someone for a kidney lays bare an austere reality: you may have a “good” relationship with someone, but that relationship has limits. Roughly 90,000 individuals currently need a transplant, yet only about 7000 live donors come forth annually; I am one of undoubtedly thousands that have been humbled by relationships' limits. I now regard my wife's decision with an even greater gratitude; the cosmos granted me—of all people—with a donor! Today, I am plotting how to help raise awareness about kidney donations, something I admittedly should have started doing long ago.  \nI often try to forget my illness, but incursions continually remind me of my kidneys' current peril; my monthly serum laboratory test results arrive to my email with a“High Importance” warning, a consequence of them being significantly abnormal. These emails annoy me; abnormal laboratory results are and have seemingly always been my life's normal.  \nI recall inadvertently overhearing a distressing comment not intended for my 10-year-old ears; a physician told my mother that I would not live past the age of 20 years old","cbCaitsQl0diUQNq","https://ap.wps.com/l/cbCaitsQl0diUQNq","pdf",205378,"English","# Giving Away a Piece of Yourself\n## Living donation and hope\n## Seeking a donor and relationship limits\n## Illness monitoring and medical missteps\n## Patient safety and process improvement","[{\"question\":\"Why does the author’s wife donate a kidney and what impact does it have?\",\"answer\":\"Her donor nephrectomy is aimed at saving a stranger, giving that person hope and freedom from dialysis. The donation also changes the author’s situation by making him eligible for a living donor kidney when he later needs a transplant.\"},{\"question\":\"How did the author try to find a kidney donor when his transplant was not imminent?\",\"answer\":\"He pursued potential donors gradually through private, serious one-to-one conversations. He also leveraged his own history as a registered bone marrow donor, hoping it might soften his kidney request.\"},{\"question\":\"What does the author say about the challenge of asking someone for a kidney?\",\"answer\":\"Asking exposes hard boundaries in relationships. Many people are unwilling to accept surgery recovery and risk, cite their own health constraints, or feel uncomfortable with the request, leading to dwindling options.\"}]","Giving Away a Piece of Yourself | PDF",1790745018]