Weird question- liver donation?

 So I was in my biology and society class (I'm in college) and we're discussing transplants and organ donation. I'm an organ donor and bone marrow donor. Kidney donation isn't something that interests me, but I was intrigued by liver donation...

You donate one lobe of your liver and it regenerates completely in 2 months. (PS. Thank god our stomachs don't regenerate!!) They say that you spend a week in the hospital and may be out of work for over a month. The complication rate for donors is .3 to .5%. 

I'm 20 and my sleeve surgery only gave me pain for 2 days and discomfort for 2 more. After that I was back to normal (minus only eating liquids...). The sleeve surgery and liver donation sound similar - you remove part of an organ. 

I was wondering if I should volunteer to donate a liver. I'm probably not a good candidate at the moment because I probably still have a bit of a fatty liver and they don't love overweight people. But as I get closer to goal maybe I should volunteer. I'm a student so I don't work per se, so I could go to school as I "recover" and I seem to handle surgery and removing organs really well.

Does anyone have any experience with this? Would anyone consider living donation? Any thoughts?

Being one who had fatty liver and was given the fear that if I didn't change it would come to the point of needing a liver transplant, it was something my doctor and I discussed and I absolutely would be a live liver donor. The liver really is an amazing organ in all that it does and the way it can regenerate.

Totally something to consider!

I'm a former foster mom, so I'm still active in those circles... this article was posted a while back, about a young woman who donated a lobe to a very sick little girl in foster care...

http://www.lvrj.com/news/baby-girl-gets-unselfish-love-from-foster-family-liver-donor-132873403.html

 I have taken care of a liver transplant patient. She had fatty liver disease and was on the transplant list for 5 years before getting the call. The first time they called her the liver was 25% fatty and they discarded it. The second call was the liver a young healthy person with a beautiful liver. She was transplanted that night.
I can tell you from sitting through countless support meetings and doctors appt. that they will not consider a candidate with a fatty liver, not even slightly fatty.
I met a woman in group who had gotten her transplant from her sister. It's called a living donor and they took half the liver of one sister and gave it to the other. The donor was in the hospital longer than the transplant patient. The recovery is slow and painful.
When the liver gets fatty and is fatty for too long, it never regenerates. It gets hard and crumbly and basically that portion dies in the body.
If weight loss was a sure fire cure for fatty liver, my mother would never have had to have a transplant.
I applaud your desire to donate and I admire the selflessness, but you only have one liver and you can not live without it. It is not like a kidney where you can spare to lose one.
Livingliver donors are rarely used and if you are obese now, you may not be a suitable candidate even later.

 thanks for the info. I was never officially told that i had a fatty liver, but they took pictures and said something about it being big. idk what that means ultimately. i wouldn't really look into it seriously until I was at my goal weight. 

is the recovery much worse than with the sleeve? it seems almost similar to the sleeve because they're both removing part of an organ. 

 You would have a scar on your belly that looks like a mercedes benz emblem from between your breast to both hip bones.  It took my mom 3 months to feel well enough to smile. NO JOKE.

 i wonder why they can't do it laproscopically like the sleeve. why are the surgeries so different?

you sound like an amazing person to be kicking this around regardless.

i just found out tonight my favorite aunt has metastatic liver cancer..

sigh

thanks for posting the question

As a former pediatric transplant nurse, I would encourage everyone to consider organ donation.  I have seen numerous children wait far too long for organs, become gravely ill, and lose their lives while waiting.  Unfortunately, almost 20 people die daily awaiting an organ.

I would say that the best place for you to start if you are serious about donation would be to educate yourself and ensure that you have all the right facts.  There is so much misinformation and many myths out there about transplants.  From my experience, liver donor incisions are quite large, the pain is significant, and the recovery is much more difficult than a sleeve procedure.  Sometimes, the recovery for transplant can be more lengthy for the donor than the recipient because the recipient was so ill to begin with that they feel much better with a functioning organ.

Here are some resources that you may want to review:
http://www.unos.org/
http://donatelife.net/understanding-donation/
http://www.organdonor.gov/Default.asp

Even if you are not able to donate, there are so many other wonderful ways people can get involved.  Becoming a transplant advocate, participating in donor sign up drives, spreading the truth and awareness about organ transplant... are all needed and worthwhile ways to help others that need the gift of life. 

Great information and answer, Jennifer. I am a registered nurse working currently on an adult unit that specializes in liver and kidney transplant.

I agree that the incision is very large, depending on the size of the donor and recipient and honestly, on the size of the liver. I know that my hospital doesn't do liver transplants laproscopically because of the complexity of the vasculature of this very delicate organ, as well as the rest of the anatomy surrounding the liver. The recovery for both donor and recipient can be very long and difficult, but sometimes isn't. After surgery there is of course the risk of the graft not "taking" in the recipient among a miriad of other complications that can and often arise, but there is also the risk that the healthy donor now has only partial liver function and there's a huge risk of biliary leak among other things... I'd say that for both patients a long amount of time should be budgeted for recovery, and if it takes less, then awesome. Life afterwards for both donor and recipient is very different from life beforehand as well, so that's something else to consider.

I disagree with the other poster who said that living liver donations are rarely done-- my institution does them as often as they can. And, while deceased donors are more common, we still take care of living donors and I'm sure that many transplant centers perform them whenever they become available. I think the reason they're not as common is because most people don't want to cut out a large portion (sometimes the bigger half portion!) of their one and only liver to give away unless its to a very beloved family member, and since compatibility is so complicated, even if they decide they want to, if their organ isn't perfect as well as their own health, or the compatibility isn't a match, it'll be a no-go. I have however met both liver and kidney donors who were altruistic donors who never knew each other beforehand and just wanted to do something good for someone... one kidney donor told me that she had been pretty mean as a child and hoped that donating to a stranger in need would change God's outlook on her future after death. :)

Organ donation and transplantation is a very wonderful medical option for people in need, but it's also a very serious and dangerous surgery, as with most surgeries. I'd consider you to read all you can about it from the links that Jennifer provided to you, and if you're still very motivated about it, get involved in a transplant support group. Taking to some of the donors and recipients as well as some coordinators may give you more information and more of a feel for what you'd be getting involved in. Even if you aren't a suitable donor though, or you decide that it's really not right for you, getting involved as an organ donor activist or advocate would be a wonderful thing!

I hope these posts didn't scare you off! Just wanted to be honest! :)