June 25, 2009, Paul Amador donated his kidney to a stranger so his sister, Laura Amador, an incompatible match to himself could receive a life saving kidney from an altruistic donor. The donor chain was reported by The Record [Stockton] reporter Joe Golden.
Upon recovery, the Amador siblings joined the non-profit organization, California Transplant Donor Network, to advocate and raise awareness on the necessity of organ/tissue donations to save lives.
Together, their personal pledge to this humanitarian cause has inspired Paul to found, Dance for Donors, a club at San Joaquin Delta College which is participating in the 2009 National Donation Campus Challenge. The Campus Challenge is sponsored by the U.S. Department of Health and Human Resources, to help educate the college campus community on the importance of organ and tissue donation.
The Campus Challenge began September 11, 2009 and will continue until November 20, 2009. As of November 19, Dance for Donors has registered over 402 organ donor registries, ranking Number One compared to all other Northern California college Campus Challenge partners.
One of the Amador’s college Campus Challenge volunteers, Michelle Balgobind, 20, is inspired to help the cause because her father, Binesh Balgobind, is currently hospitalized at Stanford waiting for a life-saving heart transplant. Michelle and her father both support the 2009 National Donation Campus Challenge.
Imagine a person suffering from kidney disease, the most ordinary activities, such as cooking breakfast, social engagements, running simple errands and grocery shopping causing great physical exhaustion. Now understand there is NO cure for kidney disease. No possible way to regenerate a damaged kidney. The only option to stay alive is dialysis. However, a recipient of a donated kidney can now have a second chance at life. His or her quality of life is greatly improved both physically and emotionally. Not only is the kidney recipients’ life improved, but also family and friends of the recipient are excited and personally affected by being able to see the health of their loved one greatly improve.
Dance for Donors founders, Paul and Laura Amador; inspire college students to become humanitarian volunteers with California Transplant Donor Network. To educate and register individuals as organ/tissue donors with the California Department of Motor Vehicles, in the event of an unfortunate death, a registered donor can save up to eight lives and enhance another 50 through tissue donation.
As of November 11, 2009, according to the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, the current U.S. organ waiting list is 104,915. In California alone, there are 20,537 individuals on the waiting list. In 2008, 6,631 potential organ recipients died waiting for a second chance at life. Now 18 people die a day waiting for a life saving transplant.
Woman to receive kidney in donor chain
Last modified on 2009-11-12 03:14:06 GMT. 1 comment. Top.
Today in a hospital operating room in San Francisco, life begins anew for Laura Amador, who came down with complete kidney failure in just seven days.
By Joe Goldeen The Record Reporter June 25, 2009
STOCKTON – Today in a hospital operating room in San Francisco, life begins anew for Laura Amador, a young, once-athletic Stockton woman who came down with a rare autoimmune disease more than four years ago that caused complete kidney failure in just seven days.
About three months ago, an altruistic donor stepped forward who wanted to give up a healthy kidney to anyone who could use it, and Amador, 27, a Lincoln High School and San Joaquin Delta College graduate, was discovered to be a compatible match.
Simultaneously today, just feet away in another surgical suite in the same hospital, a 45-year-old stranger will receive the “gift of life” – a healthy kidney – from Amador’s younger brother, Paul, 24. In the near future, that man’s healthy wife will donate one of her kidneys to another complete stranger. And the donor chain will continue.
Paul Amador and the altruistic donor, 50, whose name was not released by the University of California, San Francisco, Medical Center, where the operations will take place, will undergo their operations first thing this morning to remove their healthy kidneys, followed by the surgeries for Laura Amador and the 45-year-old man, who will each receive a donated kidney.
The four operations mark a historic first for the UCSF Medical Center’s kidney transplant program, which has performed more than 10,000 procedures since it began in 1964.
It is the first time UCSF Medical Center has started a kidney donor chain, a relatively new concept in which an altruistic donor wants to donate a kidney to help a stranger. The recipient has already lined up a donor whose kidney is found to be incompatible but has agreed to donate to a stranger. In turn, that donor’s kidney goes to a compatible recipient who also has lined up a donor who ends up being incompatible, keeping the process going.
Conceivably, a donor chain can go on indefinitely.
“It’s just wonderful to get the word out there, because when people who want to donate to a loved one hear they are incompatible, they think they can’t donate. It keeps it going, because you always have somebody at the end who can donate,” said Diana Zographos, UCSF’s kidney transplant coordinator.
In November 2005, Laura Amador, a Stockton native, was in her senior year as a psychology major at San Francisco State University when she decided to go to St. Joseph’s Medical Center in Stockton to find out why what seemed like a chronic flu wasn’t going away. After 14 days in the hospital and a battery of tests, doctors finally diagnosed her with Wegener’s granulomatosis, an uncommon disease in which the blood vessels are inflamed (vasculitis). This inflammation damages important organs by limiting blood flow to those organs and destroying normal tissue.
Seven days later, she found herself at UCSF, where specialists were better equipped to treat her.
The water polo player who used to run around San Francisco’s Lake Merced daily was put on oral chemotherapy and steroids, which eventually sent the disease into remission.
“Twenty-five years ago, the outcome wasn’t good at all,” said Amador, who feels lucky to be alive even if the life she has led the past four years has been dominated by her disease. In March 2005, she started hemodialysis, which required her to go to a clinic three times a week for three-hour treatments.
After taking a year off college to regain her strength, she went on to complete her degree in psychology in 2007 despite constant fatigue and lethargy brought on by the disease.
“Just getting ready in the morning is a big deal. I’m in constant contact with my doctor (in San Francisco), since there is no cure for this disease. Any small symptom, like a cold, I contact her. It’s best to catch it early,” Amador said.
On the eve of her operation, Amador said she hopes the kidney transplant will restore her energy and relieve her of feeling sick every day.
“I am extremely nervous and extremely excited at the same time. The nerves are there because you wish there will be no complications, and you worry about the longevity of the transplant,” she said, noting it can last from six hours to six years or longer. “But I’m excited to have a little bit of my life back. I think of the fruits I can eat; I haven’t had a banana or a mango in five years. I can go back to school or go back to work.”
Amador hopes to get an advanced degree and go into counseling to help dialysis patients or start a support group for them.
Likewise, on the eve of his operation, Paul Amador – a railroad worker who gave up his expensive college program when his sister got sick – said he is more than ready to go ahead after four years of watching her suffer.
“Even my brother (Benjamin Amador, 19) wanted to volunteer for this, but I insisted. I think it’s a great honor to tell people what I have done. It makes me feel so good, I want the whole world to know about this, that one person giving a kidney to a total stranger can change multiple families. It starts a chain reaction,” Paul Amador said.
UCSF’s Zographos said Wednesday that the altruistic donor is quite excited about the process to discover how far his one kidney can go. She said all the families are expected to meet for the first time together Friday.
Contact reporter Joe Goldeen at (209) 546-8278 or jgoldeen@recordnet.com.
Visit the Amador siblings website: www.dancefordonors.org/blog One organ donation could save the lives of eight people, and tissue donation can enhance the lives of another 50 people
BECOME A DMV ORGAN DONOR TODAY!
http://www.donatelifecalifornia.org/deltacollege