Released on: 9, February 2006
, Author: Robert Volosevich, Jr. / MatchingDonors.com
, Audience: Internet related
tonbury, Connecticut resident Lori Mooney wrote onMatchingDonors.com;  I am a 49 year old wife and mother of a 22 year old son. Ihave polycystic kidney disease. I have been on dialysis for two years, and myprospects of receiving a cadaver kidney are bleak. In January of 2003, my kidneysfailed and my loving husband donated his kidney to me. Unfortunately, the transplantfailed due to a rare complication. Due to the many transfusions I received at thattime, I became sensitized. Sensitization happens when you develop many antibodiesto other peopleÂ's blood. This makes getting a match on the cadaver list almostimpossible. I have been told that the average wait for a sensitized donor is 12years. Fortunately, my doctors at Johns Hopkins in Maryland have developed a protocol to help people like me. The donor, however, needs to be a living donor. I am an excellent candidate for a transplant, as I'm without any other health problems. My blood type is AB which is compatible to all four blood types . Lori Mooney has found that special person to be her kidney donor she is Mary Bonno from Sun Valley, Nevada. MaryÂ's MatchDonors.com profile read,  I am a 38 year old woman in Nevada with no husband or children. I work for a federal government agency and I am a veteran. I have not been exposed to any chemical/biological hazards. Every day I see people linger, hoping for an organ that could save his/her life or increase quality of life. We all have a responsibility as brothers and sisters to do what we can to help each other. I am well aware of the rigors of the transplant/donor process, and I am quite serious about being a living donor . They have a surgery date set for February 7, 2006 at Johns Hopkins in Baltimore, Maryland. When Lori Mooney first learned that she had polycystic kidney disease, she was seventeen. It is the most common of all life-threatening genetic diseases affecting more than 600,000 Americans and 12.5 million people worldwide. Kidney function gradually deteriorates until dialysis is needed. The one cure is getting a transplant. Lori finally lost her kidney function at the age of 47. Her husband, Jim, offered to test to be a living donor and a transplant was performed in January 2003. Unfortunately, the transplant failed due to a rare complication. Then she began dialysis three months later. Lori Mooney has been on dialysis for three years and because she is sensitized, her wait for a cadaver kidney could be as long as 12 years. Her sister, Karen, tested for her, but was not a good tissue match. Other family members could not test because they too have PKD. At this point she was without a living donor, with little hope of receiving a cadaver kidney. Mrs. Mooney was devastated to think that she would probably be living the rest of my life on dialysis. The protocol to help a sensitized patient like her requires a living donor, and she knew of no one. It was then that Lori Mooney discovered MatchingDonors.com and was able to tell her story. After many exchanges of e-mails and telephone calls she finally met Mary Bonno in the final testing stages. LoriÂ's donor, Mary Bonno from Sun Valley, Nevada spends her life working at a Veteran's hospital in a laboratory. When Lori was asked about how she first learned of MatchingDonors.com, she was doing some personal research to answer a question about antibody/antigen reactions in donated tissues. During the course of her research, she came across a few articles about MatchingDonors.com. What Mary Bonno found surprised her, so many waiting for organs, and some that would probably be no where near the top of the UNOS list.  The VA hospital I work in has many patients on dialysis...I see the suffering every day. And when I discovered MatchingDonors.com, I found a way that I could actually MAKE a difference. I do believe that being able to actually connect and communicate with a potential recipient made a huge difference for me. I'm not sure that I could have blindly donated an organ to a person I know absolutely nothing about. I have talked to and met the recipient. I can see what a good person she is, and I can know that she and I made the decisions ourselves, not some anonymous entity that gets to make a life or death decision for a person they will never know. I'm certain that many are already on the UNOS list, but some, like my recipient, may never be able to get the organ they need unless they find their own living donor. I think MatchingDonors.com is a wonderful website; and a lifesaver for those who cannot find a living donor otherwise. Their surgery will take place on Tuesday, February 7, 2006 at John Hopkins in Maryland. This will be the nineteenth transplant done in the past year between patients and donors who have found a match on MatchingDonors.com that has gone on to surgery. MatchingDonors.com was launched in January of 2004 as an Internet service based in Massachusetts. Patients on transplant lists put their profiles on the website, and potential donors browse the site for a life they want to help save. Donors are not compensated, since it is against the law to have any financial benefit from organ donation. Dr. Jeremiah Lowney, one of the Web site founders, said  Patients are asked to pay a membership fee, but they don't pay a fee if they can't afford it. Many praise MatchingDonors.com as a creative, entrepreneurial response to this deadly disparity, and 100% of the money paid for patient memberships is applied to running the site. Since the inception of MatchingDonors.com, directed living organ donations have increased to historic numbers. According to UNOS.org, from January, 2005 to June, 2005 out of the 7,241 donors recovered for transplantation 3,802 were from deceased donors and 3,439 were from living donors.  We believe that if more people were better educated on the ability to be a live organ donor, and we add in the personal communication between potential organ donors and patients needing an organ, the number of donors will increase and so will the probability of a patient receiving their much needed organ. We already have over 2,100 potential donors on our site waiting to find patients needing organs , said Dr. Jeremiah Lowney, MatchingDonors.com Medical Director.  MatchingDonors.com is the most comprehensive searching system available. Other organizations concentrate mainly on the passive anonymous portion of finding organ donors - leaving little or no communication between patients and potential donors . MatchingDonors.com has had incredible success in its first 12 months: 1. MatchingDonors.com has an extremely high success rate - most patient members that have been on the site for at least 30 days have been offered an organ by a potential donor. 2. At least 21 of our patient members have upcoming surgery dates with their donors found on MatchingDonors.com. 3. Immediately after its first surgery in October 2004, MatchingDonors.com had over 2 million visitors on a weekly basis. 4. MatchingDonors.com now has over 100 patients with active profiles and over 2,312 potential donors on the site. New patients and potential donors sign up daily. 5. MatchingDonors.com is recommended and used by many doctors across the United States, including some of the most prestigious transplant surgeons and centers. As of January 23, 2006, there are roughly 90,663 patients waiting for an organ transplant in the United States. Yet, from January 2005 to October 2005, according to the United Network for Organ Sharing, a non-profit organization contracted with the US Department of Health, there were only 23,511 organ transplants performed in the United States. Every day, 17 people die while waiting for a transplant of a vital organ, such as a heart, liver, kidney, pancreas, or lung. This creates a national crisis that has led even President Bush to publicly encourage private organizations to raise awareness of the important need for organ and tissue donors. Currently, patients waiting for an organ donation are placed on a national waiting list through the United Network for Organ Sharing. A computer system matches patients to donor organs according to objective criteria such as blood and tissue type, immune status, medical urgency and time spent on the waiting list. This ranking system determines which patients are offered available organs. This process is extremely important in anyoneÂ's organ search, but now MatchingDonors.com offers a way to enhance the search with a more active approach. MatchingDonors.com main objective is to search the world to find potential live donors for people in need of organ transplants. Patient members of MatchingDonors.com provide a personal biography as well as pictures of their choice to display on the website, which will create an interest in them and their life story. When patients in need of an organ transplant place themselves into MatchingDonors.com database, their information will be promoted on the website. MatchingDonors.com advertises and promotes its Web site in many different ways through extensive public relations networking to increase potential donorÂ's viewing the site. The personal connection MatchingDonors.com provides is key to finding a potential live donor. According to the National Kidney Foundation, "Nearly one out of four (23.4%) of 1000 people queried told pollsters that they would be "likely" to consider donating a kidney or a portion of their liver or lung to help save the life of someone they did not know." Many people feel more comfortable considering offering a live donation to someone they may have a connection to or a common bond. -more- When patients provide their biography and open up personally, the potential for live donors to respond is increased. To help educate people about the option of live organ donation, MatchingDonors.com Web site provides extensive information regarding the safety and types of donations available. MatchingDonors.com Medical Director, Dr. Jeremiah Lowney, is available for interviews for print, radio and television before and after the surgery. Please contact Doctor Lowney at 781-821-2204 to set up interviews. An NPR radio interview about MatchingDonors.com can be found at: http://www.theconnection.org/s hows/2005/02/20050222_b_main.a sp . Both the patient and donor can be interviewed; their contact information can be obtained by calling MatchingDonors.com at 781-821-2204. Many of our patients and donors are willing to speak with the press. Contact information about our patients and donors may be obtained by calling MatchingDonors.com at 781-821-2204. MatchingDonors.com is not an organ donor waiting list, and is not associated with any organ donor organization. It is a nonprofit venue where patients and potential donors can communicate and hopefully expedite a live donor agreeing to give a much-needed organ. MatchingDonors.com gives patients and potential donors the important communication tools to correspond with each other, but once the contact between the parties has been made, the road to transplant surgery is their own. Based in Canton, Mass., MatchingDonors.com is a nonprofit corporation with people based throughout the United States. Anyone interested in donating money to support MatchingDonors.com services can do so by calling Matchingdonors.com at 781-821-2204. More information about the company is available at its corporate Web site, http://www.MatchingDonors.com. # # #
Source: Express-Press-Release.com
