I’d like to introduce you to my son Paul Cardinale. He is 35 years old and is in need of a kidney from someone who is blood type “O”. Paul received his Dad’s kidney in 1994 and it failed July 2004. He has been back on dialysis for 2 years and is on a waiting list for a cadaver kidney. I am not his blood type. Waiting Lists are long and someone can wait 3 to 5 years, sometimes longer for a cadaver kidney. Paul had numerous surgeries to correct a birth defect that eventually led to kidney failure. In the 70’s, everything that could be done for him was done. With the technology we have today, problems such as his could be corrected easily. Today’s technology also makes donating a kidney a less invasive procedure.

Paul works everyday to support himself. He works full-time and yet has to sit on a dialysis machine 3 times a week for 3 ½ hours each time. Dialysis takes so much out of him but, no matter how he feels, he still has to make it through his work day. Paul does all this without complaining. Paul has a long and happy life to look forward to and a new kidney will give him that chance. We are praying that someone will offer to save his life. Will it be you?

If you are reading this as a donor, you have taken the first step to become someone’s hero, to give someone a quality of life they are dreaming of and praying for. There is an article in the October 18, 2004 People magazine about a family of 5 who each donated a kidney to someone in need. They are quoted as saying “it’s a rare opportunity to save someone’s life at virtually no risk to yourself”. I have to believe that God’s master plan in giving people 2 kidneys when only 1 is needed was to insure that no one would have to go without. If you are a donor, or a potential donor, I urge you speak out, tell your friends, your co-workers, speak before your church groups and any organization you belong to – spread the word. Living donors are desperately needed. There doesn’t have to be anyone on this web site – there shouldn’t be a waiting list for a kidney. You can make a difference. Urge everyone you know to save a life.

As of this date Paul is awaiting his life-saving transplant at Buffalo General Hospital.
Thank you to William Thomas, an altruistic donor met on a website
and our Hero.
William Thomas, left donated a kidney to Paul Cardinale after learning of Paul's need on the internet.

William Thomas donated a kidney to Paul Cardinale on Wednesday, September 13 at Buffalo General Hospital. They are both doing well and recovering. This is the first transplant in New York in which the donor and recipient met on line. More news to come!

Policy change clears way for organ donation from Internet donor

By CAROLYN THOMPSON
Associated Press Writer

September 21, 2006, 5:04 PM EDT

BUFFALO, N.Y.(AP) _ Paul Cardinale and William Thomas sat side by side at a Buffalo hospital Thursday, the real-life result of a policy change debated by officials at the region's largest health care provider for more than a year.

Kaleida Health's decision to allow "altruistic" organ donations cleared the way for Cardinale to receive a kidney from Thomas after the two met over the Internet. Health officials believe it may have been the first such Internet-arranged transplant in the state.

"At first we really didn't know how to feel about it," Dr. Oleh Pankewycz said of the idea of allowing a stranger to donate an organ to a patient met online. It was Cardinale's mother who raised the idea with Kaleida executives.

There were legal and ethical issues to consider. Critics of such arrangements worry they may open the door to payment for organs, which is illegal, or that they favor people who can afford Web site fees or those whose stories are most moving. Profiles listed Thursday on the www.matchingdonors.com site through which Cardinale and Thomas met were titled "I want my Dad back," "Mother of four," and "Too young to die."

Lengthy discussions with input from Kaleida's ethics and legal experts satisfied those concerns, Pankewycz said, and the decision was reinforced by the success story of Cardinale and Thomas, who underwent surgery at Buffalo General Hospital last week.

"Now having lived through this, I see this is the right thing to do. There are individuals, carefully screened both for their benefit and the recipients', in which this procedure is truly lifesaving and should be done," Pankewycz said.

The demand for organs drastically exceeds the number that become available for transplant each year. The waiting list for organs from deceased donors now exceeds 92,000, said Annie Moore, spokeswoman for the United Network for Organ Sharing. Most of those people _ about 68,000 _ are waiting for kidneys.

With about 17 people on the waiting list dying every day, patients are increasingly seeking out donations on their own, whether through Web sites, billboards or personal ads. The number of patients who actually succeed remains relatively small. Last year, of the 6,563 kidneys donated by living donors, just 83 went to strangers, Moore said. That number has held fairly steady for the last three years, she said. Most donations are among family.

UNOS does not have the authority to tell transplant centers whether or not to perform altruistic transplants, but urges centers to have protocols in place for handling such arrangements.

"We just want to make sure patients are informed of the risks and challenges they may face," Moore said. It is important, she said, that potential donors undergo not only a physical evaluation, but psychological screening to ensure they have not been coerced or made to feel guilty about donating.

"Obviously, Kaleida fully agrees and endorses a policy of careful screening, careful matching," said Jim Kaskie, Kaleida's president and chief executive.

Thomas said he had watched a news segment in which the practice of patients soliciting organ donations was debated and felt for those who were taking the initiative to try to save their own lives.

After visiting the Matching Donors Web site, he pasted his profile and then began sorting through those of people looking for organs. When he came to Cardinale's, something clicked.

"It was just a feeling that this is the person I am supposed to help," said Thomas, who lives in Kodiak, Ala., and works for a homeless shelter.

Cardinale's efforts to find a donor inspired the creation of a Buffalo-area site, www.wnykidneyconnection.org, a free site whose goal is to match local people and save on the expense and hardship of travel. Cardinale's family, which paid $600 for a lifetime membership to the Matching Donors site, paid for Thomas' travel and hotel.

The local site's founder, Patti Merritt, herself a kidney recipient, countered concerns that the Internet process was unfair to those on traditional waiting lists, saying any successful matchup helps everyone.

"You are benefiting everyone else who is awaiting a kidney because you're no longer on that list," she said.

After undergoing countless tests and the surgery, Thomas enthusiastically endorsed the process as he prepared to head home to Alaska on Friday.

"It's a great leap for mankind, I think," he said, referring to the ability to use technology in this way. "Brotherly love should not just be confined to our family."