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HarperWillowes79 karma

Yup, if I need a kidney later I get it within a week or so, top of the list. They will honor my gift should anything happen to me later, they run a good business that way. If they didn't I don't think they'd get many donors.

Statistically speaking, kidney donors live longer lives than the average person, we had be in good shape to give and there is a mild sort of a sword of Damocles to incentivize us in sticking to our better habits. We'll call it the scalpel of Damocles. The odds of renal failure in me jump from 0.3% to 0.9%. Which is a risk I am willing to take.

HarperWillowes55 karma

First things first, I am a hideous rotting pumpkin right now (https://imgur.com/QoEkiPo).

The procedure was about 4 hours. I was out the whole time. What you are looking at was taken today. The end scar will look much like a c-section scar (it is right above my pubis).

I got in the best shape I have been since high school and plan to keep it up for my long term one-kidney-wonder health. I researched, talked to the people I loved, and wept to a lot of inspirational songs by Watsky. It was actually pretty emotional and embarrassing. Talking about this stuff in person still gets me all teary eyed, it is such a heart on your sleeve moment. The vulnerability is absolute.

My diet is a reasonable diet, the type we are all literally supposed to do as adults. It is actually easy, veggie-heavy meals, lean proteins, limited fat and salts, limited alcohol, no excessive sugars or overeating. The doctor's standard prescription.

UCLA is a fantastic hospital, they have an amazing staff and some of the best doctors, nurses and surgeons around doing better west of the Mississippi is harder to do. There isn't a word I have for them that isn't glowing.

The full recovery until they let me lift 10 pounds and over is 6 weeks, I must wait so that I don't herniate myself in over-exuberance.

As far as gifts, I love a good animal shaped mug.

Next I'll get to the library question.

HarperWillowes45 karma

Honestly, a deeply fair question. We make our light in this darkness, if there is enough of us we can really do something. If you wait for someone else to prove it is worthwhile you might die waiting. But if you light that first torch, you never know who else will follow next. Really.

HarperWillowes32 karma

Here is the stunning thing, and I really mean this because it floored me, I feel the same. It is seven days out from the surgery and I only feel inflation pain from the surgery (they inflate us like balloons for the laparoscopic procedure) if I walk 15 minutes briskly and only feel the surgical wounds when my clothes brush against them roughly. The gas bubbles from the same inflation shift when I change orientations and I feel that as well. It's not pain, it's just odd.

That said, if someone moved towards me to hug me I'd step back: I am healing, don't squeeze me.

HarperWillowes28 karma

Oh, how I deeply love you for asking this.

He's my hero, in the "he's still just a human" kind of way.

He is a journalist for Vox who wrote an article and made a video for his donation of a kidney to a stranger, it is grounded in the hardest of facts and statistics (where I am clearly all heart and emotional drive). This is his work (https://www.vox.com/science-and-health/2017/4/11/12716978/kidney-donation-dylan-matthews).

I don't expect you to go through all of it, it is just there if you want it.

Roughly: he decided that donating a kidney is a net good for the world, so he did it. He told as many people as he could so that he could make sure the good would be part of a chain that never ended. I'm here, so his isn't that wrong.