First and foremost, become an organ donor! Many organs can be donated while the donor is still alive. For example, did you know that you can donate part of your liver and it will grow back within a few months? Lungs (both single lobe and one complete lung), partial liver, partial pancreas, bone marrow, blood, kidneys and even partial intestines are all organs and tissues that you can donate without a major detriment to your own health, not including the surgical risks. After death, you can donate all of those plus your heart, heart valves, veins, ligaments, tendons, bone, skin, and corneas. Make sure you sign a donor card and keep it in your wallet, and tell you family and friends (repeatedly if need be) that you want whatever usable organs you may have donated after you've passed on.
Second, reach out to those you may know who are having to deal with caring for a transplant patient. Regardless of the patient's transplant status, there's many things you can do to help. Find out if there are diet restrictions, and then make a meal based on those restrictions and bring it to them. Ask if you can help out around the house with errands or chores. As the wife of a kidney transplant candidate, I can tell you from personal experience that on days my husband has dialysis, he's pretty much wiped out once he gets back. So, I can't depend on him to do things around the house those days, and with me working all sorts of crazy hours trying to keep our heads above water a lot of housekeeping falls by the wayside. If someone needs to go to dialysis treatment (most likely for kidney failure but liver dialysis is starting to become more common), ask if they will need a ride either to or from their treatment. Depending on how long it's been between treatments, a kidney dialysis patient's mind can become clouded from the toxins building up, and after the treatment they can become dizzy if too much fluid is pulled out. Not having to worry about getting into an accident either on the way there or back would be a big help. Even just being a shoulder to cry on for the caregiver would be a big help. I know I would benefit from just having someone nonjudgmental sitting there and simply listening to me vent about my cares and concerns about my husband's future.
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