Transplant from a deceased donor
Deceased donor kidney transplants are another option. But there are not enough deceased donors for everyone who wants a kidney to get one. For this reason, the wait can be long—from months to years.
If there is no living donor, someone who wants a deceased donor kidney can be placed on a national transplant waiting list kept by the United Network for Organ Sharing (UNOS). There is a "standard criteria" list and an "expanded criteria donor" (ECD) list, which has kidneys from older donors or donors who had health problems. Your transplant team can help you sort out whether to be on one or both lists.
When a kidney comes up, the two or three patients who are the best matches in the region may be called. Blood tests and medical exams are done to see which one will receive the kidney. You can be on more than one region's waiting list if you are willing to travel to get a transplant.
There is no way to predict how long the wait for a deceased donor kidney might be. Some people wait just weeks, but most wait for months or years.
Although disappointing, the waiting time for a transplant is not the main problem. Some people focus all their energy on the future, hoping to one day have a new kidney. Life will start when they get their transplant. But they neglect their own self-care in the present.
People who live each day to the fullest and use what they know about kidney disease to live well with it will have a better quality of life right now. If you can do this, you will learn some valuable life skills that you can use when that transplant comes along.
What Patients Say About Transplant
Here are three very different stories of kidney transplant:
"I was on CAPD for almost 6 years and felt pretty good. The reason I got a transplant was so I could travel more. A transplant is a lot like CAPD in that instead of doing an exchange you take a pill. It's still another form of treatment, not a cure." –Mike
"I have been on dialysis for 25 years and have had two unsuccessful transplants. The first one was a rejection 5 weeks after surgery and was removed. I was never off dialysis at that time. The second transplant was a year ago and I'm still suffering from it. It didn't work the first 8 1/2 weeks, then it woke up, and I was off dialysis for 4 months. Then my blood work started to get bad and the output decreased. I was put back on dialysis and was told the kidney failed but there was no sign of rejection. At no time in this past year have I felt even halfway decent, mainly due to drug side effects." –Lois
"My husband Simon has just celebrated his 30th anniversary of going on dialysis. His first transplant lasted 2 and a half years, the second, 6 months, the third (from his father) 11 years, and 6 months ago he had number four. He now has the lowest creatinine he has had for those 30 years. Having seen him with transplants three and four, and on hemo for 3 years recently, I can tell you that for Simon, there is no comparison between the quality of life with a transplant and that on hemo. The transplant wins every time!" –Ruth
