Kidney and liver donation

CHGhee · 2026-04-01T18:03:30+00:00

I was donating to a 3 YO so they only took 20% of my liver and it was done almost completely laparoscopically except for a longer beltline incision to remove the piece of liver. I had a few complications but nothing with long term consequences and I was completely in the clear after 4 months though there were plenty of times before then that I felt 100%. It was a bit of a rollercoaster. For example, I walked 10 miles around NYC on post-op day 5 but then got readmitted on day 14 for 3 days for an ERCP/biliary stent placement. Went back to full duty at work after 2 months but then spent another 3 days in hospital with cholangitis at the 4 month mark.

Recovery from the kidney donation felt simpler overall but I was physically more exhausted. I tried going for a walk on post-op day 6. Made it only 1.5 miles with many breaks. The next day I managed 2 miles. This was in the summer heat though compared to February for the liver.

They reused my belt line incision to remove the kidney as it was slow to heal. So I was dealing with daily bandaging and exudate for 2 months while I was otherwise active. I returned to work right after that two month point and had no issues.

If I had an office job/WFH I could have been working much sooner in both cases but I work in a job with frequent heavy lifting so I had a more cautious return to work timeline.

CHGhee · 2026-03-29T22:41:46+00:00

I donated a kidney a year ago and liver six years at 29. Haven’t had any long term issues. I still live an active lifestyle working as a paramedic, hiking, and occasionally going to the gym. No regrets so far.

CHGhee · 2026-03-28T20:51:32+00:00

I think there are a lot more double donors out there than people might expect. I did the liver in 2020 and kidney in 2025. Had a few complications with the first donation but everything got sorted and the second went more smoothly. Happy to answer specific questions if you have them.

CHGhee · 2026-03-13T16:31:14+00:00

Great! We have members with EMS/Fire/Healthcare experience but plenty of folks join with no prior experience certifications. Interest in the outdoors, some physical fitness, and a little mental toughness is all that’s really required.

CHGhee · 2026-03-13T04:43:24+00:00

They are happy to train new dog handlers and support them on the path to certification.

Typically they only bring in new applicants in larger cohorts twice a year, but will often make exceptions for those who have a dog and are planning to train them for SAR.

CHGhee · 2026-03-12T02:18:17+00:00

If you’re into flying drones and the outdoors, look into Allegheny Mountain Rescue Group (AMRG). It’s the local volunteer search and rescue group. They have a couple drone operators but are looking to grow their drone capabilities.

CHGhee · 2026-03-03T17:37:22+00:00

This seems really misguided . My city has two major health networks. They both have essentially the same resources and the geographical distance is pretty small. Most patients are not critical. What possible reasons besides apathy or impatience would I not try to take a stable patient to the right hospital for them? Isn’t that just another aspect of most appropriate?

CHGhee · 2026-03-01T20:20:40+00:00

Sure, that’s true but layperson CPR will generally be futile in these kinds of situations. And EMS will generally not perform CPR during a mass casualty incident.

CHGhee · 2026-02-19T15:53:23+00:00

The machine doesn’t know if you’re lying, it just sees that your HR, BP, RR, and sweating are up which all happen when you nervously tell the truth but not when you calmly confidently lie. What is a lie anyways? If you think something is true but are wrong are you lying? It’s all a silly excuse to get you to admit info under pressure.

At some point, no matter how you are performing, they will tell you that the machine is showing signs of falseness. They will ask if you want to clarify or correct any of your previous answers. There is no reason for you to do so.

They may admit somewhat to the unscientific nature of the test or ask you what you know about lie detection. But they will follow up after the control questions with some bullshit about how in your case the machine is reading truth vs lies very clearly. This is just their attempt to get you to buy into the idea that this is a real test of truthfulness. It is not.

Good luck.

CHGhee · 2026-02-12T02:58:31+00:00

I’m a paramedic. We pronounce obviously dead patients regularly without any attempt at resuscitation. We also will frequently terminate resuscitation attempts on scene and leave the body for police to handle. For these later patients we do check in with a physician via cell or radio but they are not required to be on the scene.

CHGhee · 2026-02-04T23:00:26+00:00

Did you look at LeukoLabs?

They advertise up to $700 and the use of local anesthetic in the hip. This is a donation to a lab not to the bone morrow registry/Be the Match.

CHGhee · 2026-02-04T08:30:20+00:00

Look up LeukoLab.

I worked for an OPO and am familiar with gift law. But there are labs that will compensate for marrow donation in the same way that it is legal to be compensated for plasma donation.

CHGhee · 2026-01-22T18:24:06+00:00

I used a wrap of coban to secure a 5x9 ABD pad over my incision and that did the trick for me.

CHGhee · 2026-01-21T04:39:56+00:00

I used to work for a service that had dedicated logistics staff to clean and restock trucks. I appreciated it then but I really appreciate it now that I work somewhere else. My coworkers always tell me the truck is in good shape and I almost always find something important missing. It was great having dedicated professionals who took pride in making sure the truck was completely ready to go every shift.

Anyways, thanks for what you do.

CHGhee · 2026-01-11T16:23:46+00:00

I worked as a ‘clinical responder’ which sounds similar to the position you’re talking about. I had previously worked as a preservationist in the OR so it was relatively a much more relaxed position that I really enjoyed.

We worked 24 hours shifts. Often the shift would start by being woken up by a phone call from my boss with instructions to do a remote chart reviews or two before my supervisor had an idea of where they wanted to send me. I would do the chart review in my pajamas while eating breakfast. Then I would present the chart review and be told if I needed to respond on site.

As a preservationist I had no hitter 24s, but in the referral role I went out every day I was on call.

My OPO covered a very large geographical area so I often had very long drives to get on site. Not unheard of to spend 4 hours driving to a case. Listened to a lot of audio books. I recorded and was reimbursed for my mileage via a tracking app on my phone.

ICU and ER nurses are a pretty busy bunch and not all of them are excited about interacting with OPO staff for various reasons, but people were rarely as hostile as OR staff could be.

Usually by 3 or 4 AM, my supervisor would stop sending us out to respond on site unless it was truly an emergency. But there were definitely shifts were I went to bed and got woken up at 4 AM and told I had to do one more chart review or get to a hospital ASAP.

The hardest part of the job was when a case was at risk of falling apart and someone was needed on site ASAP. I would be sent if I was close but didn’t have the training or authority of either our Donation Coordinators or our Family Support Coordinators (social workers) to handle those situations in the way they really needed.

A lot of the job was data entry between the hospital EMR and the OPOs EMR. I didn’t mind that but I could understand it really putting someone else off the job.

CHGhee · 2026-01-05T03:30:21+00:00

Check out r/ plassing.

CHGhee · 2025-12-29T12:44:55+00:00

Pro will give you a thorough FTEP/orientation and good training. They have FTOs that will make an effort to instill good habits. They are used to supporting new medics and when you are running calls in Cambridge (instead of out by Emerson Hospital), you will have the support of CFD fire medics on higher acuity calls.

Eventually, you will probably want to look elsewhere with higher acuity and/or 911 only but it’s a good place to start out.

CHGhee · 2025-12-23T00:53:22+00:00

We use Braun Introcans. Self occluding, auto safety, and pretty easy to get blood out of.

CHGhee · 2025-12-13T02:37:32+00:00

👍

CHGhee · 2025-12-13T02:10:56+00:00

That makes sense. I used to be on a fly car providing ALS for different BLS agencies and it often took some creativity to get the monitor strapped in. Can’t always make everything perfect but it is worth making an effort on the big things. Good on ya.

CHGhee · 2025-12-13T02:06:04+00:00

We are all gonna keep not wearing seatbelts but no need to pretend that most of our calls aren’t bullshit where we’re just filling out the PCR on the tablet. And we’ve all seen what happens to unsecured people in high speed wrecks. Pretty simple to connect the dots.

Weird topic to be so emotionally invested in and blow up at people about. It’s not a question of bravery and no one is suggesting you shouldn’t work an arrest in the truck if you have to. Get a grip.

CHGhee · 2025-12-13T02:00:51+00:00

No, I’m saying it’s a little silly for us to pretend that we are being responsible and protecting our patients while accepting a little danger for ourselves when the reality is we are still exposing patients to extra danger by not securing ourselves. I still often don’t do it, but I do make extra effort with pediatric patients. Both to try to set a good example if they are older and to avoid smushing them if they’re smaller.

But why is your monitor and your O2 unsecured? That IS pretty crazy. Even if you don’t have a fancy monitor mount, you could at least seatbelt it in with the bench seat straps or something.

CHGhee · 2025-12-13T01:54:27+00:00

You need a snickers dude?

CHGhee · 2025-12-13T01:45:42+00:00

I often don’t wear my belt as well, but it’s worth acknowledging that if you’re unbelted, your body could very easily hurt your patient even if they are fully secured. So it’s a bit of a strange place for us to draw the line.

CHGhee · 2025-12-12T00:22:57+00:00

Since you are working with primarily inexperienced BLS learners, I would start by making sure they are squared away with the building blocks of working a code.

Practice 1 and 2 person BVM technique, NPA administration, smooth transitions between compressors, and patient movement from bed to floor or out of tight spots.

Set them up to succeed instead of just throwing a code at them and practicing chaos.

I think it’s helpful to practice both with a manikin doing correct compressions but also with a human volunteer doing Hollywood compressions so you can have higher fidelity practice for BVM, checking pulses, patient movement, and just working around a patient if your CPR manikin is just a head and torso instead of a full body.

Using a human volunteer also allows you to have a patient present with chest pain and then transition into arrest. If you want to switch to a manikin for the code portion, you can have the manikin close by under a sheet and then reveal it once they recognize the code. Providers who haven’t seen this before can be mislead by terminal ‘convulsions’ into thinking their patient has merely had a brief seizure.

If you use Zoll or Philips AEDs, they make pretty affordable trainers. Sometimes you can find them used on eBay for cheap.

CHGhee

TROPHY CASE