By Mike Frandsen
Here is a draft for a video I’m planning to do later this month.
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My name’s Mike. I’m looking for a donor for a kidney transplant that I’ll need at some point, most likely in 2010. I have polycystic kidney disease. If you go to mikeneedsakidney.com you can project approximately when I’ll need it.
I plan to have the transplant in Washington or Baltimore. All the medical expenses of the donor will be covered by my insurance.
I still work on a limited basis – I have no problem working for three hours at a time – but after that I get tired easily, and my symptoms are getting worse. For the past 5 years, I have been teaching academics to kids who have autism, and I first started teaching sports to them more than 10 years ago. See coachmike.net.
I’ve been on the waiting list for a year but the average wait is 5 years. Outcomes are better with living donors anyway. The alternative would be dialysis but there’s a slight chance of death on dialysis during the first year, and on average it gets worse during each subsequent year. Meanwhile a transplant would hopefully last the rest of my life.
The chance of success for a transplant is expected to be very high. I would be as good as new and just have to take medication. I plan to get married and have kids someday, and have grandkids as well. Alonzo Mourning and Sean Elliott played in the NBA after having kidney transplants.
So a kidney donation could ultimately be the difference between dialysis, which could potentially lead to death, and having a long, normal, healthy life.
Everybody has two kidneys but only needs one. The donor might have a good deal of pain afterwards but it should go away within a week and you should be able to get back to work within two weeks.
You can Google information about the transplant process and probably learn a lot within 10 minutes.
You should be blood type O, although if you are not, there is still the possibility of a paired donation.
I know this is a lot to ask but it would be an amazing gift.
Thanks a lot.
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So that’s my draft script for the video. A couple of other points – people are always asking me when I’ll need the transplant. As it says on my site, I’ll probably need it when the function dips to about eight percent. As for when that will be, you can take a look at the graphs. The line isn’t likely to change much from what it has been in the past. Past performance isn’t necessarily an indicator of future results in the stock market, but in kidney disease, it usually is. However, I still hope to wait as long as possible before having a transplant. Maybe I’ll get lucky and things will stabilize for a while.
Click here for a graph that shows my kidney function over the last several years. Just below it is a graph showing 2008-2009. It is remarkable how resilient the kidneys are, but at some point the toxins become too much for the body to handle.
One thing I don’t understand is that people think that the deterioration of the kidneys should always happen at the exact same rate, so they are surprised at any changes in the slopes of the graphs. There are fluctuations in the graphs that show a few small peaks and valleys but the general trend remains the same. Anyway, if you can read this blog you should be able to read and interpret the graphs.
Nothing has changed – the rate of decrease is about the same as it has been for the past several years.
I’m open to suggestions about the wording above or the process in general if anyone wants to give me any.
I know it seems awfully serious, but I’ve tried to lighten the mood a little bit with the first kidney video: Mike Needs a Kidney.
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On a lighter note, the Redskins won yesterday (though it was an ugly game), my fantasy team lost, and the Broncos beat the Cowboys on a great play near the end of the game, so two out of three’s not bad. Sundays are the best.
Tags: autism, blood type, death, dialysis, donor, Mike Frandsen, pain, polycystic kidney disease, transplant, video, waiting list, www.coachmike.net, www.mikeneedsakidney.com
