Guest Post by Jason Garcia - Week 0

Happy New Year, everyone! My friend Jason has kindly written about his experiences looking into being a possible living donor candidate. I am blessed to have him explore this for me, and wanted to share his thoughts with you.


Earlier this year, Niem started nightly dialysis treatments because his kidneys are failing. I've been a massage therapist for the past twenty years dedicating my life to helping those around me and the truth is I don't even know what the name of his condition is because I'm afraid. All these years he's been dealing with it I felt he'd find a way to solve it or slow it down enough that it wouldn't come to this but that never happened. Now that he's almost a year into his routine of receiving truck sized deliveries of dialysis fluid and we've all become accustomed to seeing him leave our get togethers early so he can be home for the nine plus hour blood cleansing, I've decided it's time I look into what I can do to help my friend.

I've known kidney donation is that magic bullet that can turn someone's life around because I've seen those movies that usually star Ryan Gosling or Julia Roberts. The truth is that it can be 4 - 5 years of being on a wait list to even move up the list to possibly get lucky at finding a donor that matches you. I'm not too encouraged by hearing that and movies don't usually go on that long for us to see that happy ending.

For years I've thought that matching a donor’s kidney to someone in need of one is like matching a tri-states lottery numbers but I decided to look into it anyways just in case I'm holding that golden ticket. For someone whose favorite movies usually star zombies or Bruce Campbell, I'm quite squeamish about real blood, surgeries or anything involving someone being in pain. Maybe that's why I'm in the business of helping others get out of it and as I think about the possibility of being a donor, I can't help to think about this prospect.

Niem and the other five of my core friends that I met while I was a sophomore in high school are uncles to my three daughters and they mean the world to me. I don't know what this journey of finding out if I'm a donor candidate will entail but I feel blessed to be starting. When I look back a few years from now, I want to know that I did everything I could to extend his life. It's amazing that we live in a time where this is even possible. After asking a few medical professionals I work with, I've come to find out curiously that there aren't any other organs you can look to donate like the kidney. This is looking a little more promising...