Reasons People Are Afraid to Ask for a Kidney

[YollyD_NKF]

Asking someone to consider kidney donation may be one of the hardest questions you ever have to ask. Here is an article from the NKF: kidney.org/transplantation/...

[WYOAnne NKF Ambassador]

Yes, it is the hardest question you have to ask. But a friend, family member or church member consider it a calling to help someone in need. God bless you ! I had friends and club members, etc literally come out of the "wood work" to help. In the end, I received a kidney from a 16 year old donor. In the end, it helped get the word out for the need of kidney donors....whether it is living or deceased donors!! I am 18+ years post transplant! I thank God every day for the family that thought of others (me) for the gift of life I received!!!

[Bobbiereed NKF Ambassador]

I overcame the barrier of asking by letting others do it for me. You see, I made a list of every organization, school, politician etc. that both my son,the person who needed the transplant and myself and family had. From there I went to the "easiest" source, ie my former high school and asked them to put something about my sons situation and the need to be a registered organ donor in our newsletter. Once they wrote about it, I thanked them both personally and via social media--Facebook, Twitter etc. by saying what a wonderful thing they did to care about my son and his need to find a donor. Once that first "three sentence" mention was made, I took it to all the other resources, one at a time--I had gathered. I didn't do it all at once, I paced myself, which enabled me to have better control of what was going on. It was amazing--Each and every one of them did something to raise awareness to my son's need. Each time the ask got more creative, bigger, and noticed more. Remember---EACH TIME I USED SOCIAL MEDIA to say thank you. You never know who is seeing those public posts. As a result of this process, my son got a living non-related donor from New Jersey (we live in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania) who said he kept seeing the posts. An added bonus was I didn't do the asking---others did it for me!