The most living donor procedures performed in the world

The Transplant Center—Real People

"Living donors can be essentially anyone who is willing to give up either one or part of one of their organs," says Abhinav Humar, M.D., liver surgeon. Every living organ donation involves real people making major life decisions. "Each donor comes to us with their unique story and our job is to understand that story and their background," says Cheryl Jacobs, L.I.S.W., social worker, living donor program.

The Transplant Center has several living donor stories. Here are just a few:

Joan and Neil working together

Joan donated a kidney to her colleague, Neil. They are close friends who met in art school years ago. Neil’s doctors told him he probably would not survive the long wait for a deceased-donor organ.

"I went home on the morning of the fourth day [after donating] and I was back to work full-time in two weeks. I was on a 50-foot scaffold restoring a mural in Kansas City seven weeks after the transplant," says Joan.

Stefanie donated a kidney to her father

"All the children gave [The Transplant Center] their blood types and [my younger sister and I] both matched. We talked about it for a while and I decided—we both decided—to let her do it. We thought with her being a little overweight she would lose weight and she would get healthier in the meantime, and it took her a while. [Our dad] got sick again the first part of [the] year. When he got sick again, she said ‘That’s enough, it’s taking me too long, let Stefanie do it for him.’ Once he heard those words, he was fine, you know, to let me do it."

James donated a kidney and half his pancreas to his sister

"I don’t know that I can speak to the dynamics among all the family. I know that there were some who felt those who hadn’t immediately stepped forward to be tested were somehow not acting appropriately. I didn’t feel that way because I had done some research.

One of my brothers [has] a daughter who was diagnosed with diabetes at a very young age, [and] she has no full siblings. [He is] her best shot should she [ever] need a kidney. So as difficult as it might be for him, I think he made the right choice to not come forward."

Craig and Leslie were both involved in son Riley’s liver transplant.

"With our situation [my wife went into surgery for] the procedure [and surgeons] found it wasn’t going to work. Her anatomy for the blood supply was not what we needed to hook up to Riley’s blood supply—it was [too] narrow," says Craig.

"When I woke up and found out that things didn’t go down (her liver segment had not been taken), I don’t even know how to describe it. In a way it was almost like, OK, what’s next?" says Leslie.

Fortunately, Riley’s dad had a compatible blood type and vessel structure. Ten days later Craig successfully donated part of his liver to his son.

David donated part of his lung to his mother, Judy

“We did talk about that [irony]. I gave him life, but he unexpectedly gave me my life back—and it’s a wonderful feeling. It was a great, great gift. My son was married on Sept. 15 so one of my goals when I was operated on was to walk down the aisle at his wedding. [He] insisted on bringing me down the aisle, so it was a very emotional moment but very exciting,” says Judy.

David says, “It was probably the earliest a wedding crowd started to cry in the history of weddings. It was really—it was great, you know, just to have her there and feeling good.

When I think about… that part of my lung is in her… it just kind of blows me away, just the fact that it was possible to happen. [We] can look at each other now and say ‘whoa, this is pretty amazing.’”

Nondirected Volunteer Donor

I first started thinking about becoming a donor when I read an article in a magazine about a woman [who] had donated to somebody. [The man in need] was at her church, but she didn’t know him beforehand, but she always wanted to donate because she felt helpless that her father had died of kidney failure and her little sister had died of kidney failure. Even though she didn’t know anyone at that time, she just wanted to donate. I just thought it sounded like a good idea.

Call The Transplant Center and ask to see more about these real people and learn more about the Living Donor Program.