organ transplants

Organ transplants and donations are a personal matter. It is hard to
consciously decide to give up and organ even if we know we won't be using them
again. Coffins don't come with commodes or ventilation shafts so we don't need
our kidneys and lungs and we won't need our corneas because we don't pack
reading material. But to decide to not donate because of ethnicity seems odd to me.
Hispanics and Afro-Americans have high risks for renal failures and they have
higher objections to donating kidneys. Yet when it comes to choosing to receive
a kidney versus being on dialysis guess what they choose.

I asked an Afro-American friend if she would donate any organs and her answer was,
"I'm going to heaven with whatever God gave me."

Continuing on that line of reason I asked, "If you have breast cancer would you get a mastectomy?"

“Of, course, that's an illness."

"Well, what's renal failure?"

"Okay, maybe I’ll donate." ( Still not to sure she meant it, I think she was just trying to get me off her back!) but still not donating is a personal choice, I accept that.

To some it seems that life is a gift from God, and if a kidney fails it's God's
will or you need to place your faith in the right basket. I'm not God's spoke
person, I don't know how God feels about us giving our kidneys, lungs or heart
or corneas to someone else, does he think we're ungrateful, we didn't like the
color, it was the wrong size etc. Or does he feel like we do, (or should that be
vice versa?) that life is valuable and we were put here to help each other. He
gave his life for us, he donated a complete body yet we are afraid to donate a
small percent back to the living. if there is a resurrection from the dead, and I can't elaborate on my views because only certain people have freedom of speech, I'm not sure that a god
that created us out of dirt and organized a couple of universes can manage to
refurbish us with all our necessities.

I certainly would hate to get to heaven and not be able to use the bathroom because
I left my kidneys behind with a father of three ,or not be able to breath in
the clear crisp unpolluted air because my lungs were with a young medical
student , or to not be able to see the glorious new heaven because i left my
corneas with some one that wanted to see her grandchildren. Just in case though
I’m packing a crate of tydybowl and a oxygen tank to take with me and
requesting a bible in my casket.



ARTICLE FROM YAHOO.
Two US women to donate kidneys to each other's husbands Thu Feb 23, 1:40 PM ET

Two women will go under the surgeon's knife to donate their kidneys to each other's husbands.

The couples met through an organization that arranges paired living donor exchanges after both wives were told they had the wrong blood type to donate their kidneys to their own husbands, the Chicago Tribune reported.

To date, 80 donor-recipient pairs have registered with the Paired Donation Consortium and 12 kidney swaps have been completed.

The operations will mean a new life for both families. The typical wait for a donated kidney in the Chicago area is about five years.

"Let's talk about what's happening here," Carl Chandler, a minister, told the Tribune. "A black woman is donating to a Hispanic man, and a Hispanic woman is donating to a black man, and there's no fear or cause for concern.

"Too many people waiting for organs are afraid to go outside their communities because of prejudice or closed-mindedness," Chandler said. "We hope that this will motivate people to realize there's no color issue here. There's just a sickness issue."

Blacks and Hispanics are more likely than whites to have diabetes, a main cause of kidney failure. But organ donors from black and Hispanic communities - which provide better matches for genetic reasons -- do not keep pace with demand.

As a result, "minority patients may have to wait longer for matched kidneys and therefore may be sicker at the time of transplant or die waiting," notes a US government organ-transplantation Web site.