![]() It would also ensure employers would allow donors to use the Family Medical Leave Act when recovering rather than using their own vacation days or sick time. The Act would keep potential donors from facing discrimination from insurance companies. The Living Donor Protection Act was first introduced in Congress back in 2014 and has been re-introduced several more times since then, but has failed each time to become law. However, a large concern is the lack of protections for donors. Then finding out the next day that the recipient had gotten the kidney, and it worked immediately was like heaven on earth,” she said. Last December, Cartwright could finally share the gift of life. “I’ve always known, regardless if I could donate to him or not, that kidney was promised to someone else.” Her father also had PKD and while she wasn’t able to give her kidney to him before he passed, organ donation has always been on her mind. Kristin Cartwright recently became one of those living donors. Less than two years later, Joey and Melissa found the donor they were looking for. We did everything we could possibly do,” Melissa recalls. So, the Greenwells met with a transplant team and were told to find a living donor. Those diagnosed with PKD, like Joey, eventually go on dialysis or seek a transplant. The illness creates multiple cysts within the kidney, causing it to enlarge and eventually shut down. “We reached a point where the blood pressure medications just weren’t working and his kidney function was declining,” says his wife, Melissa Greenwell. Joey Greenwell lives with polycystic kidney disease. That means nearly 17 people a day are dying while waiting for an organ. Greenwell was faced with going on dialysis or finding a living donorĪccording to the United Network for Organ Sharing or UNOS, there are over 105,000 people in the United States needing of organ transplants, but only about 6,500 living donors annually.Bowling Green's Joey Greenwell knows organ donation is vital.More than 105,000 people are waiting for organ transplants.
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |