Pictured is Editor Brett Milam prior to surgery on Dec. 13, 2019 to donate a kidney to a stranger.
I donated a kidney to a stranger on Dec. 13, 2019. I recently heard through the kidney transplant team at the University of Cincinnati Medical Center that the individual is healthy and doing well.
I don’t know who they are, what they look like, what race or gender they are, what religion, if any, they adhere to, what socioeconomic background they come from, what their age is, their political affiliation, if any, and if they like honey mustard on scrambled eggs like I do.
Two years out, I only know that they are healthy.
And that’s okay with me. I don’t need to know more. In fact, I prefer not to know. Because in donating my kidney to save a life, I did the deed because the deed was meaningful on its own merits and it didn’t matter who stood to benefit from that deed.
Doing good is good in and of itself.
But in reflecting on the two-year anniversary of the deed and what to write about it, a curious thought occurred to me: My kidney donation has become something of a footnote in my life these last two years.
Yes, there’s the scar I notice under my belly button and yes, I can’t make a five hour road trip anymore without stopping for a bathroom break.
But otherwise, physically, I’m fine. The worst of the recovery was the immediate 10 days after surgery. A week after surgery, I was already walking my dog around the neighborhood.
Most days, I forget I even donated a kidney and only have one functioning kidney.
In the last two years, my mental health is what became the dominate dissertation of my life, if you will. Or more specifically, confronting my mental health problems.
Even though I gave someone a renewed life, I thought I was living on borrowed time. I thought eventually I would succumb by my own hand. There was no “donating” a new brain to me.
At my worst, I hoisted up red flags like I was the one and only citizen of the country of Warning Signs, telling my parents and siblings that they would be fine without me. That they would move on and be okay.
I’ve written in prior columns how often I thought about death. Depression and death had glommed onto my brain to such an extent, my identity was defined by them.
It’s not even that I didn’t know what it would mean to be Brett Milam sans depression and suicidal ideation — it’s that I didn’t even think it was possible to get to such a point.
However, two years out from my kidney donation, I stand here with one less kidney and almost as if I did receive a brain transplant, thanks to antidepressant medication, regular therapy and dieting and exercising.
I had to learn, even though it would seem obvious from the outside, that depression (and suicidal ideation) are not immutable characteristics of my existence.
Our brains are not static and we can and do change, re-wire and re-train them through things like chemical changes manifest by medication, thinking differently through therapy and more fun chemical changes via better eating and exercise.
Someone smarter than me can explain all the nitty-gritty scientific details, but suffice it to say, once I was on that path, it didn’t take long. That’s because I came to the table with an open mind, humility and a willingness to do the work.
As a “reward,” within two months, I wasn’t thinking about death on a regular basis anymore. I wasn’t having depression spirals anymore. And within four months, my therapist, who originally mapped out a six-month treatment plan, was ready to discharge me.
However, I chose to stay in therapy because it’s nice to talk it out with someone. It seems so basic, and maybe you’re asking, is that worth the money? Yes. Health insurance helps, of course, but the out-of-pocket differential is worth it, too.
I’m going to repeat this to mantra the stigma out of existence: I go to therapy.
Yes, I go to therapy. Bi-weekly at the moment.
I go to therapy because my mental health matters and because mental health is physical health. That pesky brain I have, it sits inside my skull, right? Which is attached to my spine? Separating the two wouldn’t end well.
Perhaps part of the stigma around mental health is trying to make it seem as if mental health and physical health are two disparate things rather the whole of our well-being.
So, yes, two years out from my kidney surgery, I’m physically well, but now I can say that with the full holistic meaning of including my mental health: I’m well.
While it’s weird to think of my kidney donation as feeling like a footnote these last two years, it was likely the most important thing that has happened to the person I donated to in their last two years.
That’s because 101,000 people are waiting for kidney transplants in the United States, according to the National Kidney Foundation.
In the time it’s taken me to write up to this point in the column, about three people were added to the kidney transplant list, or one every 14 minutes.
An average wait time for a kidney transplant is 3.6 years. Imagine that: Waiting nearly the average length of someone’s college career to hear the news that your life will be extended.
Or maybe not, unfortunately. Because 13 people die each day waiting for a life-saving kidney transplant. In 2014, 4,761 patients died while waiting for a kidney transplant and another 3,688 became too sick to receive a kidney transplant.
That same year, 17,105 kidney transplants took place in the United States. Of those, the vast majority, or 11,570, came from deceased donors and only 5,535 came from living donors.
I’m not a math guy, but it doesn’t take a Nate Silver to see that the ratio between the number of people waiting on the list for a life-saving kidney and the number of available kidneys, particularly from living donors, is not meeting demand.
We need more living donors to step up. To realize, as I did, how easy of a process it actually is and how you can still live your life afterward.
And we need people to step up and realize, as I did, that therapy is okay and that your mental health matters, so you can still live your life afterward.
I know I’m asking a lot here, but all it takes is that first step. Whether that’s in the direction of donating a life, or shoring up your own life through therapy.
Please visit the NKF at kidney.org, if you’re interested in being a living, life-saving donor.
I’m always open to people’s inquiries to help them better understand kidney donation or therapy.
Please send any such inquiries to me at bmilam@www.clermontsun.com.