LifeGift

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Living donation occurs when a living person donates a kidney or part of an organ – including the lung, liver and pancreas – to an individual in need of a transplant.

In most cases, the living donor is a close relative of the person in need, but some living donors wish to remain anonymous and do not know the intended recipients of their organs.

LifeGift does not coordinate living donations. Instead, the potential donor should contact the intended recipient’s transplant center and speak with its kidney transplant coordinator for more information about how to begin the donation process.

Learn more about living donation by visiting the National Kidney Foundation website at www.livingdonors.org.

Carmen (with kidney donor, Rose Ann)

Kidney recipient – March 2, 2006, Harris Methodist Fort Worth Hospital, Fort Worth

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If there’s one thing most of us can count on, it’s the generosity of our friends to lend a helping hand – or, perhaps, even save a life. That’s the story of Rose Ann Meredith and Carmen Washington.

The two met in 2001, thanks to Carmen’s future fiancé, Anthony Douglass, who knew Rose Ann from poetry readings they attended. Rose Ann soon learned that Carmen had received a kidney transplant two years earlier, after lupus caused her kidneys to fail.

In the following years, the disease also threatened the transplanted kidney. Doctors told Carmen that her best option would be an organ from a living donor. Rose Ann heard the news and began testing to determine if her kidney would be a match. In March 2006, Carmen received the ultimate gift of friendship – Rose Ann’s kidney.

Thanks to the unselfish act of her friend, Carmen is training to become a medical assistant and hopes to work with those who helped her in the Harris Methodist Fort Worth Hospital transplant program.