Happy as a Bean

Audio interview: If I had four kidneys, I'd give three, says a man who gave his kidney to a friend who was number 8003 on the waiting list who was going from flying to dying before his eyes.

So nice to hear in his voice how happy he is. 

Reminds me of my dad's smile when I woke up after the operation.

'You look like the Cat who's got the cream' my brother told him when he saw him. [click link to see fellow beeming cat]

There, another heartening story. Racking them up.

It is excellent that these sorts of stories do get picked up, and on BBC's flagship morning news programme no less. More work needs to be done so that it's at the top of the news more frequently. The underlying warning to take away from the heartening story above, though, - the shriek behind the giggle - is that his friend was 8003rd on the waiting list. That's no laughing matter.

In Canada, there's a shortage of donations, so over 200 people died last year when their bodies couldn't take dialysis any more (the swarm of chemicals it sends through your veins is not natural). I would go insane if I ended up in the same situation. Every night, I'd be thinking about all the organs going to waste every day. Each could so, so, so easily be giving these exhausted, dialysis soldiers a break.

And South America is suffering some odd, inexplicable kidney epidemic at the moment, with people falling left right and centre, and doing 'home made dialysis' to keep themselves alive (no idea how that works). Hell, even Hugo Chavez was struck down, albeit for slightly different reasons.

These stories aren't one off. All of them are really pretty dramatic. And the answer is so blindingly, bleeding obvious. It is more than insane that we, in the 21st century of surrogacy/IVF and laser eye surgery can't join the dots.

1 + 1 = 2. We learnt that aged 3.

Roar