the secret between the alchemist and god

[dhampyresa]

Until recently I was unaware that undirected kidney donations/kidney donation chains were a thing. This surprised me, given that it is the sort of thing I would usually know about so I looked into it and it turns out that's not an option in France. You can only donate to people you know and/or are related to or within a paired donation. This applies both for kidneys and liver lobes. Alas all my organs shall remain within me for now.

The point of this entry is to prompt you to do the following:

• Check if you have registered your wishes for organ donation* after death in the appropriate place(s). France is an opt-out country, but iirc most countries are opt-in.


• If you are eligible, please consider registering as a bone marrow donor.


• If you can, please give blood, plasma and/or platelets.

* It has to be your own organs. I checked.

Entry title taken from the song "Birth to my Creation", from the Frankenstein musical. Because taking one person's body part(s) and sticking them in someone else has big Mad Scientist Victor Frankenstein energy. I will not be taking criticism at this time.

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Comments

[netgirl_y2k]

I am off to donate plasma on Friday. (It's possible that my ideas of fun things to do on my day off are not quite usual.)

[dhampyresa]

(It's possible that my ideas of fun things to do on my day off are not quite usual.)
Then we can be unusual together! I like to donate blood/etc on my days off too -- in iirc 2019 I even did so on my birthday!

[corvidology]

The US will not let me donate blood because I lived in England for too long. Yep.

Both the UK and the US are opt-in.

[dhampyresa]

Curse those prions!

What's the process for opting in like?

[corvidology]

In the US, it varies from state to state but it nearly always involves notarized paperwork. Once that's on record, they'll put a note on your driver's license. Cos, y'know, everyone drives Bah!

[morbane]

Interesting to compare across countries! Last week was, I think, my fifth plasma donation for this year. I haven't looked into bone marrow, and I need to get around to registering after-death organ preferences along with some other will paperwork I've been putting off.

[dhampyresa]

Congrats on your fifth plasma donation! That's 3L if they use the same 600mL standard as France does. That's most of the blood volume of a human! And that's terrific :D

I hope your paperwork isn't too annoying or cumbersome. Re: blood marrow, to test my HLA for compatibility, I just got one or two (can't remember exactly, sorry) extra vials taken while I gave blood one time -- hopefully you can do the same, since that's the easiest way, I thinK.