How will you change the world?

It was a huge package that I received in the mail today. With trepidation and excitement, I opened the end of the shipping envelope and took the contents out.

FedEx Express Shipping Envelopes and a FedEx Air Bill, 2 small boxes with vials nestled in protective styro-foam homes, and a thick packet with questionnaires and informational brochures.

Gulp! Am I really ready for this?

Let me rewind a little bit. My friend that passed away in August from Melanoma blogged about her experiences using a site called caring bridge. This site is available to patients and faimly members who are undergoing significant medical concerns. The idea is that a serious injury or illness is draining emotionally, physically, financially, and mentally on the patient and their caregivers. This site is supported by medical facilities and private donations and allows the user to have a site where they can post updates and friends and families can post messages of support.

My friend lost her battle with malignant melanoma but her children (14 months, 4, and 5 at the time of her death) will be able to see the testament of their mother's spirit and will be able to see how hard she fought to live and to be around for them. Even though the youngest will likely not remember his mother, Nathan will be able to see just how much his mother was loved and supported and how many lives she changed during her short 31 years on this earth.

You can read about Amber's journey here.

But I digress. In the 16 months of Amber's fight, people from all over the USA and internationally signed Amber's guest book. Many were family and friends or friends of friends. There was a small percentage of folks who were directed to her site by the owner or visitor of another caring bridge site. These people would link their sites in their guest book post so that others could visit that page and offer support. You could literally spend hours surfing through the caring bridge site, hopping from one to another.

It was through Amber's site and another site that I frequent that I found Dominik.

Dominik is 2 1/2 and was born 12 weeks early due to kidney failure. He received a kidney from his mother on April 24th, 2007 and rejected the organ a month later. Obviously she can't give her other kidney and no one else in the family was an appropriate match.

They've made their plea very public. Dom has type A blood (which is good--it's a common blood type) but the difficulties lay in the high levels of antibodies from his rejection earlier this year. Currently, he is staying at the Ronald McDonald house with his mother where he is close to his medical team and receiving hemodialysis several times a week.

Enter Fairview Medical Center in Minneapolis, MN. The transplant center has been overwhelmed with inquiries regarding living kidney donation, including mine. But it isn't enough yet because a match hasn't been found for little Dominik yet.

I don't kid myself. I know that the chances that I'll match him are so slim that I'm really not even worried about "what if". I'll cross that bridge when I come to it. If I come to it...

I've already discussed organ donation with my family and I've been registered through the Motor Vehicle Department since I've had a driver's license. You can't take anything with you when you die, and your organs can help so many people have healthier and happier lives, free from the daily worry about the hourglass running out of time.

The beautiful thing is that you no longer have to wait until death to make a difference in someone's life. You can donate blood, plasma, platelets, bone marrow, kidneys, part of your liver, lungs, etc all before you die. All it takes is knowing a little information and knowing who to contact.

So, I will go to the lab on Monday morning and have my blood drawn to be sent back to Minneapolis for testing. And then I'll wait for the results.

Please consider being a living donor. Your gift of life will change the life of someone in this world.

Organ Transplantation by the Number:
-data taken from the UNOS website-

		Waiting list candidates	98,080	as of today 4:16pm
		Transplants January - September 2007	21,401	as of 11/30/2007
		Donors January - September 2007	10,847	as of 11/30/2007