Be A Human Donor Be A Human Donor Kindness Within Ourselves

A story worth hearing

Life after a living-donor kidney transplant

What it feels like when your body has room for projects again.

recipient 2:21 Keck Medicine of USC
Original source: Keck Medicine of USC · Life After a Living-Donor Kidney Transplant
Watch on YouTube

What it’s about

An Pham received a living-donor kidney and tells it without decoration: she got to do things again that illness had taken away. It isn’t a heroic story, it’s a recovery story. And that’s what makes it powerful, because most people on the waitlist don’t want a superhero, they want to hear from someone who already went through it and is moving forward.

What you take with you

  • Living donation gives back real time, not just medical time. Time for projects, for trips, for the everyday.
  • Seeing what life looks like on the other side helps donors understand the concrete impact of what they did.
  • Medicine saves the body. The story gives the process its meaning back.

Why I’m sharing this

Because sometimes the numbers and the medical process don’t say anything about what it feels like to get your life back. An Pham says it better than any statistic.

A personal note

What this video leaves me with

An Pham describes exactly what I feel today: that life came back. Months ago I was tethered to a dialysis machine. Now I can think about tomorrow without tomorrow hurting. If you’re on the waitlist and feel like it’ll never come, watch her. I was there. It came. And when it does, you forget almost everything bad.