Closer to the Kindred Spirit

For the past two years, we had been seriously contemplating about kidney transplant for one of our brothers, who lost both his kidneys, and now is on dialysis twice a week. He was in the South, hoping to get a kidney transplant, but when everything was ready, and his papers went to the medical council of the district, a customary procedure in any state, his application was rejected. Therefore he had to be brought to our place, and we had been contemplating what we could do, keeping in mind our moral, legal and ethical standards, without impinging on the law of the land. But we have realized that it is not easy to do this.

We were lucky to have several medical practitioners to give us ideas about what we could do; in fact having so many doctors to advise and propose to us, has been one of the drawbacks of the entire process, which had been getting delayed, when we wished to explore every avenue that different doctors proposed to us. Requesting a kidney donation from a non-relative donor had been a shady area which we wanted to avoid from the beginning; but looking at the situation of our companion needing a kidney, we have no other option than to explore other ways of getting a kidney for him from the non-relative category, and he has a lady, wife of his brother’s friend, who is ready to donate one of her kidneys.

What we do not wish to do is : endanger the life of a person, in order to save the life of one of our companions. Medical practitioners have said that a healthy person can easily donate one of his/her kidneys, and generally the lone kidney would start functioning for the two, and there should not be any problem. But what if later in life, the person experiences problem with the kidney? That is a remote possibility, but we cannot brush it aside altogether. We were also wondering, if one of our companions not donate a kidney for this ailing companion! That would be more in keeping with the fellowship we share in common, but would that take shape?

I could see that the companion who is in dire need of a kidney is frantically looking forward to a transplant, so that he could drink water normally, and work and keep himself as a normal person would. Sometimes he talks to me in such pathetic voice that I cannot be indifferent to him. At the same time, this is not an issue which can be plunged into without calculating the risk factors, the repercussions, because here it is not an individual who is involved, but an institution. We are required to tread slowly and steadily, so that we do not do anything which may jeopardize our work and mission. But not everyone would look at this angle.

Moral and ethical issues cannot be left out, while considering a non-relative donor; the law of the land had been made stringent, so that a poor person is not led to sell his/her organs for money, though such things happen throughout the country. Our companion did admit that in the South, it was such a case, where an agent was given Rupees two lacs, hoping that his candidate’s kidney would fit, and he would get another two lacs at the end of the transplant. I was told that the donor would get a minimum amount. Whether we like it or not, organ donation is a lucrative business, where innocent poor are victims and even the law is not able to stop it. The question that I feel we should ask ourselves is, whether we should allow ourselves to buy the life of a poor person, badly in need of money?

Caring for the Treasure House

We often realize the worth of things and persons only in their absence. A father may be the worst kind of person and notorious drunkard, and the mother may curse him each day, why God is not calling him; but look at the same mother after the untimely death of the father. She would not be happy to have lost her husband; she would feel the pinch only when he is no more there. Probably all these years, she was able to look only at his drunkenness, and not any thing else. But after his death, she realizes that he was much more than a mere drunkard; at least sometimes, when he was sober, he used to be affectionate and loving towards her.

The same is also true of our human body; we do not realize what a treasure house we possess in our bodies; maybe a whole life will not be sufficient to understand the minute intricate mechanism which is operative in our bodies; the crisscrossing of veins, bones, flesh, and all of them perfectly linked to the mind, the central processing unit. When one of the body parts is dysfunctional, it affects the entire body, and that is what is so very obvious, when we look at one of our senior friends, who has spoiled both his kidneys, and is frantically on the look out for a donor, and a nursing home which will conduct the transplant.

Life is not the same when these kidneys have refused to filter the waste; he has to go for four agonising hours of dialysis, twice a week. When he returns after the dialysis, he is half dead; he has not much energy, and each day, as his body weight increases due to the accumulation of urine, he feels uncomfortable, and so cannot engage in any serious work. Life has come to a standstill for him, and therefore whenever there is a ray of hope for transplant, he gets excited, and sincerely hopes that something good will come out of this desire. When he neglected the care of his body for several years, he did not realize what could happen to him one day, and today he regrets for neglecting the care of his health.

It is illegal to even indirectly convince a person to donate one of his/her kidneys so that this friend of ours may live a fairly healthy life, for atleast another ten or fifteen years. It is also unethical, to imply that our friend's life is more worthwhile than the donor, even if it is a friend who has come forward to do this great favor. The moral and ethical questions are not easy to resolve, though it is easy to cut short the arguments on the ground that all lives are equal, and if one has destroyed one's kidneys due to neglect, it is for the one to reap the fruits of what he had done, but humanly speaking we cannot stop at that.

Most of us falter in life, not out of willful, deliberate action, but out of ignorance and carelessness. If only our friend had known for sure that if he did not care for his health, and take necessary precaution, he may lose his kidneys, probably he might not have landed at this stage. But could he be given yet another chance to taste and see what life has to offer to him? It is a big lesson for us, to realize the worth of each of the body parts, big or small, all of them have a specific role and function. Yesterday I saw a middleaged man, whose both feet have been amputated. Yet he looked quite happy, walking on his knees. He may feel envious of us, but do we sufficiently care for our feet?