Vital Organs

Organ failure is complicated, because organs don't fail suddenly, like a lightbulb might.  It's not to say they never do.  It's just that the most common scenario is one where the vital organ slowly deteriorates  over time. 

They're called vital organs, because they literally sustain life. In other words, our lives are literally dependent on these organs functioning properly. But quality of life is also directly related to how well these organs function. I frequently think about patients who are waiting for a lung transplant, because drowning seems like an unpleasant way to die. So...drowning ON LAND seems even scarier. 

Patients who are registered on organ transplant waiting lists are usually in a more advanced stage of failure or decay. For many of them, quality of life is lower than the percentage of organ function remaining. That bums me out, because the shortage of viable organs for transplantation is something that CAN be solved through awareness.  We just don't have enough of the right people talking about it in the right forum.

Lets get together and fix that!

Meanwhile, here's to those of you fortunate enough to have received a healthy kidney...