Are You Kidney Me?

I'm giving y'all a break from my navel-gazing and mindless twaddle to share a heartwarming story from the Washington Post. Although "heart"-warming may not be the right organ reference. Permit me to explain.

Attribution below

Our story begins with a guy who got dissed by his first choice for prom date and the last-minute stand-in who saved his life.

In 1988, a devastated Shawn Moyer was looking for a replacement date for the prom. He chose Elena Hershey, who was a year younger and thrilled to go.

They lost touch over the years, but one day Elena's former classmate told her of Moyer's plight. He was on dialysis and needed a kidney. When he was a teenager, Moyer had contracted an infection that resulted in his body rejecting his kidneys. He'd already had two kidney transplants – donor kidneys only last 8 to 20 years. (Fun fact: a kidney from a living donor lasts longer.) He needed a new one soon. He was on a waiting list for a cadaver's kidney. 

The wait time was 7-10 years. 

Meanwhile, in 2023, Elena, now a teacher in Boulder, CO, was approved as a kidney donor. She'd researched the process for two years before deciding she wanted to donate a kidney to someone. When she heard about Shawn, she decided that's who should get hers. 

Of course, the odds of her kidney being a match weren't good. But there is a workaround for this. You can donate a kidney to someone who is compatible and receive a voucher. The voucher is then activated in the system for a living donor. This meant instead of waiting for a decade, Shawn would be getting a kidney within a year. And because it was from a live donor, the transplant could potentially keep him alive for another 20 years.

Last month, Shawn met his match, got his new kidney, and is recovering nicely at his home in Glen Rock, PA, thank you very much.

Shawn was stunned and enormously grateful for Elena's sacrifice. The two met, shared a photo op, and plan to keep in touch. 

For her part, Elena is almost matter-of-fact about the experience. The recipient's insurance covers the expenses, so it cost her nothing in monetary terms. And after a couple of weeks of recovery, she was back to her healthy self, but with a renewed sense of fulfillment. 

"I would do it again if I had another extra kidney,” she quipped.

Photo attribution: Laboratoires Servier, CC BY-SA 3.0 <https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0>, via Wikimedia Commons