For 41 years, Chris Trujillo worked at Memorial Regional Health as a Physical Therapist. She retired in 2021, and though she knew she had inherited polycystic kidney disease, she felt generally well and was looking forward to spending time with her husband, Delbert, and their grown kids Tucker and Megan, as well as their son-in-law Zach and three grandkids. Gardening, cooking, golfing, fishing and camping were also on the agenda.

But recently Trujillo’s kidneys began failing, and she is now actively on the transplant list with UCHealth Transplant Center at Anschutz Medical Campus. While she still feels reasonably well, she’s been told she may have to wait three to five years for a donor kidney. And in that period, she may need to start dialysis.

Trujullo’s friends are helping her find a potential living kidney donor through local publicity and the website kidney4chris.org. “I’d like to remain as healthy as possible and skip the dialysis phase if possible,” she said. “My blood type is O, which is a little harder to match, and I have high levels of antibodies against foreign tissues, which makes it even harder. A compatible living donor would be my best bet.”

So how does living donation work? If you were interested, where would you start? Here are the basics on donating a kidney or other organ or tissues.

Living Donation 101

According to the Health Resources & Services Administration, an agency of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services and the organization that runs the website organdonor.gov, living organ donation is an option for kidneys, liver segments, lung lobes, partial pancreases, intestine portions, skin, bone, bone marrow, umbilical cord blood and, of course, blood and platelets.

Kidneys are particularly in need. Like Trujillo, about 85% of people on the organ transplant list are waiting for a kidney.

Any adult in good health may be a candidate to be a living donor. If you’re interested, you would start by reaching out to a transplant hospital and connect with their Living Donor Team. At UCHealth, you would begin by completing a screening medical history questionnaire at uchealthlivingdonor.org. If you’re interested in donating bone marrow, visit bethematch.org.

After completing an initial screening, you would be assigned an Independent Living Donor Advocate to assist you and advocate for you during the donation process.

The next step in organ donation is a full evaluation. This involves a financial consultation, a psychological evaluation and extensive medical testing. Everything is confidential. The recipient’s insurance pays for testing and surgery, but you must be able to cover lost wages, travel expenses and some follow-up care. In addition, if the medical testing you will undergo uncovers any health problems, your health insurance would need to cover those. Financial support is available through the National Living Donor Assistance Center, and some employers, Trujillo said, will help cover lost wages for this purpose. Medical testing includes a chest x-ray, EKG, organ testing (such as kidney exams if you plan to donate a kidney), blood tests and cancer screenings.

One of the benefits of living organ donation is that you can choose who receives your donation. If you know someone in need of, say, a kidney, you may be able to help them directly. You can also sign up to help a stranger. Research shows that people who receive organs from living donors have better outcomes than those who receive organs from deceased donors. And shortening someone’s time on the waiting list keeps them healthier and improves their quality of life.

If you would like to donate to a specific person, compatibility tests will determine if you are a match. This includes blood typing, tissue typing and blood-cell crossmatching. If it turns out you’re not a match, there are programs in place that can pair you with another donor-donee pair for swapping donations.

Donation surgeries take place at the transplant hospital. Living kidney donors typically stay two or three days at the hospital. Donation recovery takes about six to 12 weeks.

“I know living donation may not be right for everyone,” Trujillo said, “but you can still help by sharing my story with everyone you know and by considering being an organ donor after your passing. Thank you for taking the time to learn more about living donation.”

To learn more about becoming a live donor visit these links: kidney4chris.org, organdonor.gov, uchealthlivingdonor.org, bethematch.org.