A Los Angeles grandmother in need of a kidney transplant received the life-saving organ from an unlikely donor — a 34-year-old man from Norman, Okla., who she had never met before.
Ms. Barrett suffers from polycystic kidney disease, a genetic disease that can cause kidney failure. Her mother died of the disease at age 64, and Ms. Barrett's daughter also suffers from polycystic kidney disease. As a result, neither Ms. Barrett's daughter or her son, who is in remission from cancer, were viable donors.
Ms. Barrett decided to join MatchingDonors.com, a nonprofit website, in February 2016. Its platform allows patients on transplant lists to post profiles on the website for potential donors to view. Within six months of using the website, she met John Putney. The average time a person waits on the national deceased donor list is seven to nine years, according to MatchingDonors.com.
Mr. Putney decided to drive the roughly 1,350 miles from Norman to Los Angeles for every test and evaluation required for the transplant. On March 28, he made the final trek to Los Angeles-based Cedars-Sinai Medical Center for Ms. Barrett's transplant surgery.
"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," Jeremiah Lowney, MD, medical director at MatchingDonors.com, said.
MatchingDonors.com has connected patients and organ donors for nearly 600 surgeries since the company launched in 2004.