What are the pros and cons of donating blood?

Dontating half a liver pros cons .?

• my mother is sick & needs a liver transplant . she has been on the transplant waiting list for 10yrs!! i'm compatible with her tissue & blood type. her liver is failing on her it can no longer process the toxins leaving her to black out & don't know the year , date or even her own daughters. im wondering of the pros & cons to donating half a liver. i've heard it grows back but i've also heard it shortens life expectancy. i'm only asking for serious answers please dont be rude.

• Answer:

  It's a serious surgery to go through, but it doesn't shorten your life span. Once you get through the surgery, your liver will grow back to normal size and you should be fine. You don't need to have a compatible tissue type to be a liver donor. The only thing required is that you have a compatible blood type and be similar in body size. You must also be in excellent health in order to donate. You will have to go through an evaluation to be accepted which is similar to the one your mom had to go through in order to get on the national waiting list. Everyone on the waiting list is given a MELD score that you probably already know about. It goes up to 40. The higher the score, the sicker the patient. The score is determined by the results of 4 blood tests that show how close to total liver failure the patient is at that time. When a donor organ comes in, the person with the highest meld score who is a match is the one to be called to receive the transplant. Your mother must not be sick enough to have a high meld score and that's why she isn't being called. I think that waiting 10 years is a bit ridiculous since that is an extremely long time to wait. Most people are called within a few years. The average waiting time at my center when I received my transplant was about a year. I waited 18 months for mine. You don't say how old you are, but I thought I would mention that you must be 18 years old to donate. There are some exceptions. You can discuss this with your mothers transplant coordinator who can advise you what to do if you want to be her donor. If it were my mom, I would donate in a second without any hesitation to save her life. You must also understand that the transplant center that is taking care of your mother must have a program in place in which they do living donor transplants. Not all hospitals and transplant centers do them. If they don't do living donor transplants, you would have to find a place that does do them. If you are serious about donating to your mom, you need to get in touch with her doctors and transplant coordinator to discuss everything. If they do these types of transplants there, they will explain everything to you about it. If they don't do them there, they could put you in touch with another transplant center that does do them. I wish you and your mom the best if you choose to go through with this. Many people have done it which saved the life of their loved one. The good thing about being a living donor is that the patient doesn't need to wait until they are very very sick in order to get their transplant. Once approved, they can get the surgery done any time they like and not be on any waiting list. Good luck to you.