This Trade Deadline Isn't Over Yet
By Jocelyn Geboy in News on Feb 23, 2006 8:04PM
Alfreda Torres and Paulina Chandler are the wives of two men (Francisco Torres and Carl Chandler) who need a kidney transplant. They aren’t doing a wife swap, but they are going to be swapping something very important: kidneys. They are doing a “living donor kidney swap,” and it’s the first time this procedure is being done in Illinois.
Because each wife’s blood type didn’t match her husband’s, but matched the other wife’s hubby, they are going to give a kidney to each other’s husband. According to the Trib, a kidney from a living donor lasts longer than a kidney received from someone who has died.
If that weren’t already unusual, the couples are stepping into a color-blind world. The Torres family is Hispanic, and the Chandlers are African-American. Their story, in today’s Trib, talks about the growing need for minority kidneys, and how both blacks and Hispanics are disproportionately represented on kidney transplant waiting lists, due to a higher percentage of incidents of diabetes and hypertension. In the story, Chandler was quoted as saying: "Too many people waiting for organs are afraid to go outside their communities because of prejudice or closed-mindedness. We hope that this will motivate people to realize there's no color issue here. There's just a sickness issue."
Chicagoist’s dad had a kidney transplant in 1985 from a woman who had left this earth. His kidney is still going strong and when he first received it, he was known to remark: “Now I have to sit down to take a pee.” Ever the joker, we’d like to say that he’s kidding and that we’re glad he’s still around. We are heartened by the idea that more people can receive transplants if they are willing to be open-minded about who gets the kidney and about the big operation that goes along with it.
No one in the medical community goes taking kidneys from people who are still alive or even have a chance. We encourage everyone to tell the DMV that you’re an organ donor, because you never know whose life you may save. Conversely, you never know when you might need a replacement kidney or cornea. Besides, you're dead. Do you really need that stuff anymore?
Image via stronghealth.com
