Anyone have a liver I could borrow??

One issue with my bloodwork was my chronically high Liver Function Test (LFT) results. There are two enzymes, AST and ALT, that will show the presence of liver disease. When a liver cell is damaged, it will leak ALT into the bloodstream. Testing for this enzyme is a simple indicator that there is liver damage. The same is true for AST, though AST can be found for other reasons. Sometimes, the ratio of ALT and AST will give some indication about the cause of the disease. In my case, they told me to stop drinking for a while and to re-test. After two months of clean living, I was given another LFT. The results were not much better. I was told that I most likely was suffering from Fatty Liver Disease, probably brought on from my diet and lack of exercise. Change both, take some supplements, and get retested in a few months, I was told. That was in April.

My new diet cut out nearly all dairy. In it's place I ate plenty of soy milk and soy yogurt. I bumped up my intake of whole grains, which was already high. I began taking some supplements. These included Omega 3,6,9, Lecithin, Vitamin E, and Milk Thistle. I put flax seed oil in everything I could. I was re-tested in September and my AST and ALT levels came down very dramatically. The AST was right in the middle of the normal range, but my ALT was still very slightly elevated. A retest two weeks ago shows that my ALT is now perfectly normal, and the donation is a go! I am very excited by the development (both for the chance to donate, as well as my improved health). As soon as they find a suitable recipient, we are good to go. HOT DOG! (soy, of course)

I'm totally unbalanced.

One of the small things we discovered during my first battery of tests was that one of my kidneys was a bit larger than the other. It's not terribly uncommon, or anything to be alarmed at, but it could keep me from donating. The nephrologist explained that if the kidneys are too far away from a 50/50 split, in terms of their function, then he would recommend that I keep both. They wouldn't want to leave me with a small kidney, and also wouldn't want to take that smaller kidney to give to someone else. To solve the dilemma, I was given a split function test. I was injected with a small amount of a radioactive dye. After a short period of time, I was sent to radiology for some real-time monitoring of my kidneys. Based on bloodflow to and from the kidneys, they could figure out how much work was being done by both sides. Fortunately, I was a 51/49% split, and the donation was still on.

My left kidney for a decent website.

One of the problems I ran into when I first started researching kidney donation was the utter lack of information. There was plenty written about live donations, but very little about altruistic, non-directed living donors. The only website I could find that really addressed the subject was something similar to a matchmaker. People with healthy kidneys would peruse potential recipients' profiles, and make a choice. The problem, a major one, is that you may choose someone with a great story (or worse, a great picture), but that doesn't mean you are a good organ match. The whole thing seemed silly; donors and recipients are not the best people to decide who gets which kidney. There is tissue matching that is required to make sure that person A's kidney will fit and be welcome in person B's body. A great backstory does nothing to improve the odds that the organ will not be rejected. In the end, it's a popularity contest, with the winner getting a better shot at finding a donor. To me, altruism should not discriminate based on color, looks, good writing skills, or anything.

So, with no real guidance from the internet, I did the only thing I could think of. I called a big hospital and told them I wanted to donate. I still think donors need a better website to help them along the way. Maybe this blog may someday turn into that...Hmmmmm.