Donors Desperately Needed

By Kara Lee Lambert

Many people, myself included, have donor marked on their driver’s license.This would help so many people using eyes, tissue, organs and more. However the need for living donors is great. Would you consider being a living donor to save a life?

According to the National Kidney Foundation, kidney disease is the fastest growing in the country. 1 in 7 have it.

Currently there are more than 107,234 people waiting on the transplant list. 88,799 are for kidneys. 17 people die a day waiting for a transplant. Every 10 minutes another person is added to the list.

Median wait time for kidney transplants is 3 to 5 years. The longer a person is on dialysis the more the body breaks down and the harder it is for the body to accept a new kidney. The need for living donors is great and a donor has a short recovery and continues to live a normal life. A living donor can not only save a life but can shorten the amount of time a patient has to be on dialysis.

In 2022 808,000 people in the US are living with end stage renal disease (ESRD).

Also, in 2022 more than 25,000 transplants took place with 42% coming from live donors and 58% from deceased donors.

Just in my new world of kidney disease I do dialysis 3 days a week in Miles City. At our clinic there are 20 patients treated each of those 3 days. There are 3 people who do at home dialysis. At the clinic in Billings that I also have gone to there are 120 people treated a day, 6 days a week. That is 720 treatments a week. There is another dialysis clinic in Billings with the same numbers. That is a huge amount of people on dialysis for just our state!

If you would like more information on kidney disease and transplants visit the National Kidney Foundation website @ https://.kidney.org.

If you would like to test to see if you would be a match for me you will have to go through Centura Health at porter.donorscreen.org.

I would hope that if you don’t match me you will consider continuing the process to be put on the list to help someone else. It is completely confidential and you can stop the process at any time. I thank you for your time.