Monday, December 11, 2006

Dig deep, be afraid of what you may find

I was searching a web site and found the policies that dictate organ transplant.
In those documents it explains whoe gets one first then who gets one next.
Within thses documents it also explains what information can be released to the public.
Within that information, I think I have an idea where my recipient is located in "the system".

I am pretty confidant this data is current as of this afternoon 11dec06.

There are 148 on the waiting list based on blood type.
When you break that down using the MELD score (he has an 8) there are:
49 with a MELD score of 10 or lower.
57 with MELD of 11-18
26 with MELD of 19-24
2 with MELD of 25+
That's 134 waiting with MELD scores

With 148 on the list, I am guessing some of those (maybe 14) that might have a status 7 which means they are not able to accept a transplant for some reason and the Status 7 means inactive.

The recipient could be 133 people closer to a liver or 147. Regardless, it's not anytime soon.

Since I am NOT a statistician (nor would I play one on TV), my numbers may be waaaayyyy off. Your mileage may vary.

Since these are real, live people above, being represented by those numbers. Everything changes daily. In some cases, hourly.
My recipient is one of those. It is a sobering to see it in simplified black and white numbers and it doesn't remove the importance or need.

At this point, we (I) am not expecting a live donor. We are still waiting for a bit of news regarding our neighbor. I won't be holding my breath.

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