I’m now the new Living Donor Transplant Coordinator RN for my hospital and it’s the biggest responsibility I’ve ever had in my life.
My job will be to increase the number of living donor kidney transplant cases we do in our department. Put another way, it’s up to me to walk people through the process of donating their kidney to someone they know.
If I have difficulty writing about it, it’s because I have difficulty absorbing the impact this work has on other people. People have died because of this surgery. Perfectly healthy people have died because of their decision.
I understand the good that comes from choosing to donate but when I sit three feet from a perfectly healthy person who could die because of this process, I find a little part of me shaking inside.
My position is a new position. That is to say, it didn’t exist. I’m not taking someone’s place. I’m developing a new role in our service from scratch. There’s no getting around the fact that the difference between success and failure centers on my efforts. Holy crap.
Scientifically speaking, the best chance for health for someone with renal failure lies in obtaining a kidney from someone who is alive. Psychosocially speaking, that’s a heck of a thing to request.
I sat in with a patient today who will be donating her kidney to a friend in two days. I’ll be following her case from today to the minute she checks into the hospital to the operating room to the post-op floor to two years from now. She is my responsibility and there is no circumventing that fact.
If you think about how much you like your kidneys where they are and think about what it would take for you to give one up then you know have an idea of what I think about when I go to work now.
As I was sitting next to my patient, we talked about another person who died because of this surgery. A clip had failed. A little piece of plastic that was to stay on a blood vessel slipped off and the patient bled to death. I’ve never been in this position before. The seriousness lays like lead in my stomach.
I know I was meant to do this job and that all of my experiences put me in the best possible position to succeed but at the same time it’s all very, very humbling.
