Living Donor

This is Mike. The response has been overwhelming from family and friends on the living donor front. We are truly grateful for this but need to make sure we are not working against ourselves. UCLA has one coordinator working on Ruby for living donors and our concern is that she is being inundated with calls and is having to work through all of the messages and losing time. My intent with this post is to clarify who would be eligible and therefore reduce the amount of calls that wouldn't be a match based on the criteria we know up front.

1. Small frame and body-There is no exact body or weight ratio they are looking for. All we can say is that our cousin we thought would be match was too big at 5'4" and 115 pounds. Fit and healthy donors are always preferable.

2. Cannot be breast-feeding

3. Must have healthy liver (no heavy drinking, smoking, drug use, disease)

4. Blood type must be A or O positive

5. Age-younger the better, must be 18 at least.

6. They would like to avoid young mothers, although this will not preclude you from donating

7. IMPORTANT-Please spend some time educating yourself on the surgery. This is not a simple surgery and comes with a fair amount of risk. 20% of the cases end in complication. You will spend 6 hours under for the operation, two days in the ICU, and another 7 days in the hospital (approximate times). Women will not be able to become pregnant for 12-24 months. Risk of death is negligible as that has occurred only once since 1985. Here is a link that explains some of the components. Please visit this page and explore the info available:

http://transplants.ucla.edu/body.cfm?id=66&oTopID=37

8. Lastly, for ethical reasons, the family cannot answer questions about the process or specifically if you would be a match. Please go through everything above, make the decision if you would like to proceed, and call the coordinator at UCLA at 310.794.3223. Her name is Karen. Most likely you will have to leave a message and await a call back. However, if you meet everything above and want to proceed it's worth noting on your message why you are a good match (i.e. small body and frame). Karen has been going through hundreds of calls that have come in trying to determine who could be a match. Keep in mind once a phone interview has been conducted and passed the living donor will have to come to UCLA and undergo many more tests such as MRI, CAT scan, physiological testing, etc.

Again, thank you so much for considering doing this.`` Hopefully the above provides some answers and allow more informed decisions to be made.