NYT article on living donation

[Guest guest]

There's a first-person essay in today's NYT Magazine about waiting for

an organ transplant. Having recently " been there " and knowing others

who still are, my feelings on the subject mirror the author's

somewhat. An excerpt:

" Altruism is a beautiful virtue, but it has fallen painfully short of

its goal. We must be bold and experiment with offering prospective

donors other incentives for giving, not necessarily payment but

material reward of some kind — perhaps something as simple as offering

donors lifelong Medicare coverage. Or maybe Congress should grant

waivers so that states can implement their own creative ways of giving

something to donors: tax credits, tuition vouchers or a contribution

to a giver's retirement account. "

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/12/16/magazine/16kidney-t.html

[Guest guest]

What an absolutely wonderful article. When the living donor option was offered to my late husband, our nephew stepped forward without a second thought as my husband had been more like a father to him than his own dad and the thought of losing him he didn't want to face. Though she never voiced it to him personally my husband knew that his sister, our nephews mom, was not thrilled about her son being a donor. She was on a double edge sword. She didn't want to lose her baby brother (my husband) but she also didn't want the risk of losing her son if something should go wrong in the donation process. And to top it all off she is a nurse and knew the risks involved. Unfortunately, my husband passed away two days before our nephew was to come up for further testing. All our nephew wanted out of his act of kindness was to keep his favourite uncle in his life as long

as possible. He has my husbands boat now at his house in FL and everytime he has a problem with it he says it is his Uncle Moh testing him. Hettinger

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