A couple months ago we had a ward member send a plea out for a potential kidney donation. He had been on the donor list for over 5 years and had started to become discouraged.

After some thought I decided to offer up one of mine (anonymously).

It's been a very slow process that I later found out was because the recipient had taken a turn for the worse and they needed his health to recover before moving forward.

Fast forward to last week. On Weds I received a call from the donation program saying my recipient was no longer in need of my kidney. I worried and thought there could only be 2 reasons...either he has gotten worse or he got another one from somewhere else.

I reached out to the family and was informed he recieved a transplant from a deceased organ donor the night prior.

Confused at my call the family asked what triggered the call because no one was aware of the donation yet. I let them know of my anonymous donation at that point. The family became vocally emotional at that point.

They said what was interesting is prior to the donation they were being pushed by the doctors to improve his health and they were unsure why. Obviously not aware of my donation. Unsure why they did what they had to to get his health back up. Ultimately, had I not started the process he would not have been healthy enough to take this other donation and would have missed out on the opportunity.

I've decided at this point to move forward with the donation either way and do a pair donation where I donate to someone who has another donor but no match. That way multiple people become recipients.