From The Associated Press State & Local Wire, December 29, 2004 by Cheryl Wittenauer
Madolena Key was scheduled to donate a kidney to her husband, Billy, in the summer of 2002, but when a perfectly matched organ from a deceased donor suddenly became available for her husband, Key''s kidney wasn''t needed.
Until she thought about it awhile.
The following January, Key contacted Mid-America Transplant Services and said she would like to donate her kidney to someone else who needed it. Her husband''s ordeal with kidney disease and dialysis had taught Key that 60,000 people in the United States are waiting for a kidney transplant, along with the 26,000 needing other organs.
"I thought ''why not do that for someone else?"'' said Key, 43, a bank manager in Defiance. "I wanted someone to come forward for him."
On Wednesday, Key and the recipient of her kidney, Tracy Griffin, 37, of St. Louis met for the first time at Barnes-Jewish Hospital, where doctors performed the surgeries in November 2003. Key leapt from her chair to meet Griffin, and the women hugged and wept, exchanging greetings as they wiped away tears.
Both women are black, and Key said she hopes her example will inspire other black people to consider organ donation, if not in life, in death. There is a disproportionately smaller number of black organ donors, and yet the need for transplants in the black community is great.
"I''ve got a large family that''s waiting to meet you," Key told Griffin, who has had diabetes since childhood. Griffin, who is studying to be a respiratory therapist, said her siblings also have diabetes and could not be donors.
Key''s gift to Griffin - called a nondirected or altruistic organ donation - is one of only 263 in the country since the first such donation in 1998, according to Richmond, Va.-based United Network for Organ Sharing, which oversees the nation''s organ procurement and transplantation network. Public awareness of a growing need for organs, especially kidneys, accounts for the phenomenon of stranger-to-stranger donation, UNOS spokeswoman Annie Moore said.
"We have found such people have a real strong commitment to giving. They see a need, and it''s a way to take care of that," said Merry Smith of Second Chance Saint Louis, Mid-America''s living donor program. Second Chance is one of only three programs in the country that screens and evaluates persons for altruistic organ donations.
The phenomenon is so new, that Second Chances'' potential donors are screened by a psychologist for the "right motivation," said Dr. Martin Jendrisak, head of the kidney transplant program at Barnes-Jewish. "We can learn from them. Are they solid citizens or attention seekers?"
What emerges is a person who has given donation a lot of thought, and who wants to help. They''re responsible and willing to take risk, "not a wild risk, but an educated risk," he said.
Second Chance has coordinated seven altruistic donations - six kidney, one liver - since it began in 2002 to fill a void, Smith said. Before a coordinating program was in place, offers from strangers often went unused.
Jendrisak and Dr. Surendra Shenoy, who performed the Key-Griffin transplant, developed a surgical technique called mini-nephrectomy that is the least invasive way to remove the kidney of a living donor. It uses a single, 3-inch or less incision in the side of the back, the smallest opening through which a kidney can fit.
The surgeons said both donor and recipient experience less pain, quicker recovery and reduced complications from the technique. Jendrisak said 90 percent of patients go home the second day after transplant surgery and resume driving after two weeks.
When a kidney is removed, the other organ enlarges and increases function, Jendrisak said.
Living donor candidates - who must be in excellent health - undergo medical and psychological tests and other screenings, at no cost to them, and are followed for two years. Donor and recipient meet only if they want to.