I have been procrastinating about this. I keep thinking I’ll have to plan some elegant post, researching the proper etiquette to make such a request.

Life is short. There’s not always time for elegance or etiquette.

The best treatment for my polycystic kidney disease is a kidney from a living donor. A donor’s blood-type needs to be B. (Positive or negative, it doesn’t matter). If you’re thinking, “Gee, I’d love to give you a kidney, but I’m not B,” well, let me know what you are, and maybe cross-matching can be done. You give random person X with your blood-type a kidney, X’s friend/relative with blood-type B gives me a kidney.

Yes, it’s all more complicated than this. I may have touched on the specifics before, and I’m sure I will again. But for now, I just wanted to be crystal clear…I do need a kidney. I will probably get a less-desirable cadaver kidney eventually, but that may be six or seven years from now, and that will mean six or seven years on dialysis.

Maybe I should throw in a few specifics. In the U.S., we don’t exchange organs for money. There’s really not a whole lot in it for you. I’ll probably send you an annual calendar featuring my pets.

Got questions? This may help. (It’s Duke living donor evaluation form).

I’ll turn comments off. Please send any feedback to kidney at toastie dot st.