Yesterday,There Were More Than 16 Living Kidney Transplants Performed!

...and there will be more than 16 today and tomorrow, and every day, 365 days a year.

Living kidney transplants are becoming common procedures at transplant hospitals. Many of them perform over 200 transplants a year.

Who are the donors? In the past, they had to be a close relative, with the same blood type. Ten years ago, almost 80% of the living donors were related, now, it's only 57%. It's because the "matching" criteria have changed, a result of newer and better anti-rejection drugs. The donor doesn't even need to be the same blood type as the recipient.

Living donors come from some of the most unlikely of connections. These stories are only from the past few weeks:

• …an employee received a kidney from their boss.
• …chance meeting at a 20-year school reunion resulted in someone donating.
• …a marine donated to a 15-year-old stranger.
• ….priest donates to a parishioner….another donation was from the parishioner to the priest.
• …a paired kidney exchange resulted in 9 incompatible pairs matched with 9 other incompatible donors.
• …landlord donates to the tenant.
• …in Washington DC, over 4 days, 2 hospitals performed a seven-way paired kidney exchange.
• …From Minnesota to Arizona, a five-way paired kidney exchange.

And connections were made with old friends through social media sites Facebook and Twitter, where there were 2 successful transplants.

Do you have a new idea on how to spread the word?