That Time I (Hopefully) Gave Away A Kidney – Part 39 (If I Needed a Kidney, I’d Be LIVID)

October 19, 2014

Picking up from last time –

Obviously, I’m mad. This whole thing was pretty wildly upsetting to me. But I can’t even begin to imagine the amount of anger I’d feel if either I needed a kidney, or someone very close to me needed a kidney.

But no matter how much I care about people in general, or the idea of human life – I will not pretend that I can feel quite the same amount of anger as someone whose son (or whose anyone they deeply care) is on the transplant list.

I do not have the same personal, visceral upset-ness that someone who is lying in hospital bed waiting for a kidney would.

I try to imagine myself in their shoes for a minute, and I just think, “How angry would I be?!” I don’t even know what kind of mix of anger and disbelief and sadness I’d have.

But I had no idea that this process would be made to be so hard for someone to give a kidney, and I think it’s possible that other people don’t know either.

When I got my rejection, part of me desperately wanted to say to them, “Okay. Go upstairs and tell someone – tell a family whose person is barely hanging on that that person doesn’t get a kidney, because I’m too much of a free spirit, or I’m not afraid enough, or you didn’t like me, or whatever basically crap reason (yeah, I said it!) you’re giving here. Go tell them! And let me know how that goes over.”

I don’t want people to get angry. I know it’s not a great emotion… But I do want people to get justice! …And sometimes justice is born of a mix of anger and disbelief. I will become a living kidney donor. So, at some point, I will do my part, and I suppose my “personal justice” or however you want to think about it will be gotten.

It’ll be for a different person than it could’ve been. It’ll be at a different time than it could’ve been (and I don’t know if it can be quantified as ‘good’ or ‘bad,’ as for the person who gets, it will be good to them that it didn’t work out for me the first time… but sadly, in the meantime, someone died while waiting. So obviously that was horrific for them – it’s all just so wrought with so much emotion everywhere for many people…).

But for me, it will happen.

However, how many people get clogged up in the system over stuff like this? How many people give up after something like this? This process has certainly made me oh so curious… (But maybe other people have a simpler time and I’m just a weirdo. Possible! But there’s no way I’m a one and only one time outlier, I wouldn’t think.)

Next time, I’ll pick up with one more group of people who I believe should be totally livid.

I'd love to hear from you! So whaddya say?