March 2010
At this point, we do not know of any other living donors that have contacted the University of MN with interest in donating to Matt. Rachel decides to email the Alliance for Paired Donation in Ohio for information. Enough waiting around for something to work out, we have to start pursing more options. Here is an excerpt of the information from the "How You Can Help" page of the Operation Kidney website:
https://mail.google.com/mail/?ui=2&ik=c291acda5b&view=att&th=1272539af665513a&attid=0.1&disp=vah&realattid=f_g6cg0l560&zw
Letter for Kidney Donors:
https://mail.google.com/mail/?ui=2&ik=c291acda5b&view=att&th=1272539af665513a&attid=0.2&disp=vah&realattid=f_g6cg0qmh1&zw
PAIRED DONATION
Paired donation is a newer trend in the transplant community that is not as often explored simply because it is more difficult to coordinate. Here is an explanation from the Alliance for Paired Donation website (http://www.paireddonation.org/):
"Kidney paired donation matches one incompatible donor/recipient pair to another pair in the same situation, so that the donor of the first pair gives to the recipient of the second, and vice versa. In other words, the two pairs swap kidneys . APD has also pioneered a new way of using altruistic, or good Samaritan, donors, so that the transplants no longer have to be performed simultaneously. Non-simultaneous Extended Altruistic Donor Chains (NEAD Chains ) allow donors to “pay it forward” after their loved one receives a transplant."
Basically, it means that even if you don't have the same blood type O as Matt, you can still participate by donating to another deserving person and, in turn, Matt would receive a kidney!
When we read that APD had coordinated the longest-running open-ended kidney transplant chain which changed the lives of 20 people we thought, "We've gotta get a hold of them!" Here's the article from People Magazine: http://www.paireddonation.org/files/peopleMagazine.pdf Conveniently, it turns out that the Transplant Program at the University of Minnesota Medical Center Fairview is a partner of APD.
Many Kidney Transplant Centers would love to be able to provide this option more readily to their patients, but a system for this kind of nationwide cross-matching just hasn't been fully developed yet. The United Network for Organ Sharing (UNOS) is currently developing a pilot program to be launched this fall of 2010. It will be coordinated by Organ Procurement and Transplantation Network (OPTN). It will involve four organizations to represent more than 80 kidney transplant programs nationwide, the Alliance for Paired Donation in Maumee, Ohio is one of them.
According to James Wynn, M.D., president of the OPTN and UNOS and chair of the OPTN/UNOS Board of Directors, "Each group was chosen for its experience with kidney paired donation and its willingness to broaden the availability of this procedure to a much wider group of people needing transplants." The pilot program aims to determine if a similar program could be implemented nationwide. The full article is available if you'd like to know more about the pilot program, http://unos.org/news/newsDetail.asp?id=1344.
If you are interested in exploring the option of paired donation, our intake coordinator Lessa Ennis can guide you every step of the way. She herself was a paired kidney donor in 2009 which is why she now does this type of work. She has graciously made herself available to share her experience as a donor also, she loves to discuss it! If you'd like to contact Lessa, the following is her information as well as a few initial letters she provided for interested donors.
Lessa C. Ennis
Volunteer Intake Coordinator
lessa.c.ennis@gmail.com
Alliance for Paired Donation
Kidney Donor 2009
512-415-3711
Information Letter:Paired donation is a newer trend in the transplant community that is not as often explored simply because it is more difficult to coordinate. Here is an explanation from the Alliance for Paired Donation website (http://www.paireddonation.org/):
"Kidney paired donation matches one incompatible donor/recipient pair to another pair in the same situation, so that the donor of the first pair gives to the recipient of the second, and vice versa. In other words, the two pairs swap kidneys . APD has also pioneered a new way of using altruistic, or good Samaritan, donors, so that the transplants no longer have to be performed simultaneously. Non-simultaneous Extended Altruistic Donor Chains (NEAD Chains ) allow donors to “pay it forward” after their loved one receives a transplant."
Basically, it means that even if you don't have the same blood type O as Matt, you can still participate by donating to another deserving person and, in turn, Matt would receive a kidney!
When we read that APD had coordinated the longest-running open-ended kidney transplant chain which changed the lives of 20 people we thought, "We've gotta get a hold of them!" Here's the article from People Magazine: http://www.paireddonation.org/files/peopleMagazine.pdf Conveniently, it turns out that the Transplant Program at the University of Minnesota Medical Center Fairview is a partner of APD.
Many Kidney Transplant Centers would love to be able to provide this option more readily to their patients, but a system for this kind of nationwide cross-matching just hasn't been fully developed yet. The United Network for Organ Sharing (UNOS) is currently developing a pilot program to be launched this fall of 2010. It will be coordinated by Organ Procurement and Transplantation Network (OPTN). It will involve four organizations to represent more than 80 kidney transplant programs nationwide, the Alliance for Paired Donation in Maumee, Ohio is one of them.
According to James Wynn, M.D., president of the OPTN and UNOS and chair of the OPTN/UNOS Board of Directors, "Each group was chosen for its experience with kidney paired donation and its willingness to broaden the availability of this procedure to a much wider group of people needing transplants." The pilot program aims to determine if a similar program could be implemented nationwide. The full article is available if you'd like to know more about the pilot program, http://unos.org/news/newsDetail.asp?id=1344.
If you are interested in exploring the option of paired donation, our intake coordinator Lessa Ennis can guide you every step of the way. She herself was a paired kidney donor in 2009 which is why she now does this type of work. She has graciously made herself available to share her experience as a donor also, she loves to discuss it! If you'd like to contact Lessa, the following is her information as well as a few initial letters she provided for interested donors.
Lessa C. Ennis
Volunteer Intake Coordinator
lessa.c.ennis@gmail.com
Alliance for Paired Donation
Kidney Donor 2009
512-415-3711
https://mail.google.com/mail/?ui=2&ik=c291acda5b&view=att&th=1272539af665513a&attid=0.1&disp=vah&realattid=f_g6cg0l560&zw
Letter for Kidney Donors:
https://mail.google.com/mail/?ui=2&ik=c291acda5b&view=att&th=1272539af665513a&attid=0.2&disp=vah&realattid=f_g6cg0qmh1&zw
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