Chip Chick
How would you feel if your family members were pressuring you to donate an organ to a friend or relative that you never got along with?
This same situation is happening to a teenager who is expected to donate her kidney to her older sister even though it involves risks and they don’t have a great relationship.
She’s 19 and has a 23-year-old sister who is suffering from end-stage kidney failure. Recently, her sister’s doctors claimed that she was the only person in her family who would be a match for organ donation.
Then, they told her that donating her kidney would be the only way to save her sister’s life.
This put her in a very tough position, as she and her sister were never close while growing up.
“She was often critical and dismissive of me,” she explained.
“We’ve had a strained relationship for years, and our interactions are generally limited to the bare minimum.”
However, her distance from her sister isn’t the only reason she’s not immediately offering up her kidney.
She also learned that, because of her own personal health problems, organ donation would come with a unique series of risks. She has autoimmune issues and chronic migraines, which her doctors warned her may get worse after surgery.
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