I want to give my kidney to my mom

[navit_kalra]

Hi All,

I am Navit from India. My mother has lost her kidneys and she needs a transplant very soon. I am planning to give my kidney to my mom since there are no other options with us. I have some questions majorly around consent for the surgery and looking to ask you experts out there to help me with this?

1. Do I need to take some legal consent from my wife and in-laws before I take on this surgery? (I have no kids as of now)
2. If I don't take a legal consent, what are the consequences that I might have to face in this scenario?

Reason.... you guys might have understood by now,   that my wife is not agreeing of me to donate my kidney despite the fact that she knows there are no other options and my mom will die eventually due to lack of a transplant.

Regards,
Navit

[sherri]

navit,

I am no expert or legal advisor so this is just an opinion. you don't say if you are donating in India or in the US or somewhere else. Here in the US every donor is evaluated to see if they are competent to make a medical decision, there is no coercion or monetary payment for the donation. A responsible medical team would also make sure you have a support system to help you in your recovery. If your wife and her family are not supportive of your decision to donate this may impact your decision to donate. You will need someone to help you after the surgery and just be there emotionally to support you. You do not need to have the consent of anyone else regardless of how they are related to you in order to become a donor. But you have to think about how will this effect your marriage if you decide to go through with it. What if there are complications and your wife has an "I told you so" attitude? What if the surgery is not successful for your Mom? Could this impact your marriage and then cause a rift? Very often family members are not initially supportive of a donor's decision because they are afraid something might happen to their loved one. They may also harbor a feeling of resentment because they feel the recipient shouldn't even agree to accept a kidney from a child, especially if they are an older donor. Education and open discussions about the surgery seem to help resolve alot of those issues. Bring your wife along to the meetings with the doctors so she can ask questions and feel more comfortable with the idea. I don't know what type of counseling is offered in your hospital but you may want to have a family meeting between you and your wife, maybe include her parents if that is an issue. You can then have a separate meeting to include your mother.

Wish you and your family good luck as you resolve this issue and hope everyone can be supportive.

Sherri

[navit_kalra]

Thanks Sherri for your valuable inputs and advice. It really helps.

To answer your questions, I am going to donate my kidney in India itself. The transplant team of AIIMS hospital has already discussed this with me. They have also encouraged me to bring my wife along with me for discussions and I am planning to take her there soon.

However, given my decent intentions, I am still in quite a sticky situation here. My wife though educated, is very conservative and scared of almost every small medical problem even. It is basically lack of motivation which was lacking in her case from her parents itself since her childhood. Her parents had always kept her too shielded from the world and made her totally dependent on her mom's decisions to run her own life. That's the case even now, after marriage. Her mom influences all her decisions even today. That's the reason, she is very very skeptical and highly scared of even a normal - cold, cough type of problems. She doesn't even take medicines just because some stupid Homoeopath doctor has done a brain wash of her parents and family. With such kind of knowledge and attitude, she is very likely to misunderstand all risks as well as success rates of transplants.

Anyways, I will try to get her meet the transplant team soon, to atleast try to convince her of the situation and present her the benefits that we are going to offer to my mom (provided, she doesn't want my mom to die as soon as possible, which is a common attitude in today's world married girls here in India; This is more of a society related hazard in India and nothing more than that).

Thanks Sherri once again for the encouragement!

-Navit.

[Scott337]

Navit,


Just a thought, maybe you should have your wife read some of these posts and become familiar with some of our post-surgery stories.  I'm not certain how anyone could hear the stories of the journeys of so many special individuals and not be touched and supportive of your gracious and life-giving gift, should you continue on that path.  I think she may find these stories inspiring and informative so she has a better understanding of pre-surgery motivations and emotions of potential donors as-well-as realistic post-surgery discussions and information, allowing her to formulate her own opinion of the risks and rewards to you and your family, not to mention the life-changing implications for a grateful recipient.

Good luck my courageous friend!

Scott - Minnesota