https://www.blogit.com/Blogs/Blog.aspx/Payton1/This was originally intended to be written during Organ Donor Awareness Week only, but I felt like writing about transplant-related issues at other times of the year.hourly12000-01-01T12:00+00:00https://www.blogit.com/Blogs/Blog.aspx/Payton1/441097In this story in the Chicago Tribune (registration required), the Tribune reporter talks about changes to the American system which allocates the organs of deceased donors to those waiting to receive them. This allocation agency is called the Organ Procurement and Transplant Network, or OPTN, and...https://www.blogit.com/Blogs/Blog.aspx/Payton1/438134This is the requisite Chicago-themed Super Bowl post. I couldn't let the week go by without at least a mention of Walter Payton, Chicago's favorite transplant candidate. Not too long before his death, Payton announced that he had primary sclerosing cholangitis, an unusual liver disease. He was in...https://www.blogit.com/Blogs/Blog.aspx/Payton1/414369In the last entry in this blog, I noted that the type of transplantation mentioned in the Star Trek: Voyager episode entitled Phage is very difficult to perform. It isn't a technical problem, either, which makes these transplants difficult - it's the consent issue. That very issue is dealt with...https://www.blogit.com/Blogs/Blog.aspx/Payton1/413971We have been borrowing and watching past episodes of the series Star Trek: Voyager. In that series, the writers present a species called the Vidiians (I hope I'm getting the spelling of that species right), afflicted with a microorganism called a phage, which infects all of their organs...https://www.blogit.com/Blogs/Blog.aspx/Payton1/407025This article tells the story of what amounts to a four-way kidney swap. For argument's sake, let's call these people Couple A and Couple B. Husband A agrees to donate a kidney to wife B (who is a compatible recipient). In return, Husband B agrees to do the same thing for Wife A. Just read the...https://www.blogit.com/Blogs/Blog.aspx/Payton1/406265The original purpose of this blog was to discuss organ donation - please consider donating at least your solid organs. I know someone in Canada who just got a transplant after being on dialysis for nearly four years. People die waiting all the time. In fact, if you take a look at the URL for this...https://www.blogit.com/Blogs/Blog.aspx/Payton1/406150On one of my kidney-related email lists, I posed the question: Who is the world's longest-surviving kidney recipient? I got this Mayo Clinic link in response. I can remember a time when someone who had been transplanted five or seven years had had the transplant a long time. Well, here it is,...https://www.blogit.com/Blogs/Blog.aspx/Payton1/406098This link tells the story of the world's longest-surviving recipient of just one heart transplant (although I imagine there are longer-surviving recipients of several hearts). Stories like this make me (a kidney recipient) want to give him a run for his money!https://www.blogit.com/Blogs/Blog.aspx/Payton1/406081In earlier posts in this blog, I've discussed the cost of prescription medication. As a transplantee myself, I understand this problem intimately. It's not unusual for a month's worth of transplant meds to cost several hundred dollars - a bargain compared to some anti-cancer drugs, but still...https://www.blogit.com/Blogs/Blog.aspx/Payton1/403460Keith Reemtsma was a transplant surgeon who died in 2000, at age 74. Perhaps his greatest claim to fame is his experimentation with xenografting. In 1963 and 1964, he transplanted chimpanzee kidneys into thirteen patients in kidney failure. Twelve of those patients went back into kidney failure...