Help Save Robert Bexton’s Life

A donor can offer a future where I have the energy to play with my son and live long enough to see him graduate from high school. To lift the years-long toll on my wife of being my caregiver, wondering when she’ll next find me non-responsive on the floor. Every extra day means more time with Andrew, Anne and the rest of our family.

If you’re curious, interested, or just want to learn more:

What is Living Donation and how does it affect the Donor:

• A healthy, living person donates a kidney to another person.
• The donor is assessed in depth by a medical team.
  • This assessment screens for any condition that could potentially make the surgery risk the donor’s health in the short term or long term. Those who are found able to donate are highly unlikely to be harmed by the surgery.
• Medical costs are covered by the recipient’s insurance.
  • The evaluation process, surgery, and follow-up medical appointments are covered at no cost to the donor.
• The donor’s recovery:
  • Hospital stay is 1-2 nights
  • A full recovery takes about 4 – 6 weeks
  • Pain medicine is needed for a short time
  • The Donor should be able to receive compensation for lost work hours through foundations including the National Kidney Registry, your employer or state disability programs.  Some related info (link opens in new tab): Taking Time Off Work to Donate
• After donation, the donor should still have a long, healthy, normal life: eat and drink what they want, no need for new medication after donation, exercise normally, have a baby, etc. More information (opens in new tab): Kidney Donation Facts
• The donor’s blood type and kidney tissue type don’t need to match the recipient: paired donation can create a chain of kidney donations helping many patients at once (one kidney donation can lead to a chain of “anywhere from two to 30 transplants.”) (opens in new tab): National Kidney Registry

Benefits of Kidneys from Living Donors

• Better Health Outcomes, fewer surgeries: Living donor kidneys tend to function better and last longer than deceased donor kidneys.
  • A kidney from a deceased donor lasts an average of 7-10 years.
  • A kidney from a living donor lasts an average of 15-20 years.
• Shorter Waiting Time compared to waiting for years on a deceased donor wait list.  Every additional month waiting adds risk to my health and to my family.
• Scheduled Surgery: transplant surgery can be scheduled at a time convenient for both the donor and the recipient.
• Fewer people on the waitlist – Every living kidney donor reduces the wait for the other ~90,000 people on the kidney waitlist.

This may be one of the few opportunities in your life to literally help save another person’s life. 

Thank you for reading. That you made it this far means you care. I appreciate it.

Q: What is “kidney failure,” do you only have one kidney left?

A: In my case, kidney failure is total failure of kidney function. We are typically born with two kidneys, though a small portion of the population is born with only one – and those with only one typically live a completely normal, healthy life with their kidney.

Q: What blood or tissue type are you able to receive a kidney from?

A: I can receive a kidney from a donor with either O positive or O negative blood, but there are also other tissue matching factors considered – it’s complicated. National Kidney Registry (a private, non-governmental organization) enables chain donations whereby someone donates on behalf of a friend whose blood/tissue does not match. The donor’s kidney goes to a different person in need and creates a voucher for the friend, who typically receives a kidney from a different, matching living kidney donor within about 4 months.

Q: How fun is 2025?

A: In some ways great, in others not so great. Great: I’m feeling better now than I was during much of 2023 and 2024 and am now healthy enough to be able to receive a kidney transplant. Now working on building back muscle and exercise capacity lost after kidney failure. Not great: My mom passed away this year. Also, we lived in Pacific Palisades, most of which burned to the ground January 2025. We now live in Santa Monica. Santa Monica has been good to us: a few good friends moved with us to the area and the local public school is very good. And we have met new good friends.

Q: I’ve heard that kidneys can grow back?

A: This doesn’t happen in cases like mine. People with certain types of kidney failure – for instance, acute kidney injury – can recover.

Q: What is the donor medical assessment process like?

A: Depends on the medical facility where you are assessed and your ability to attend appointments. You may be able to get all of the assessments done in a few full day visits over 1 month, but it generally takes a few months to get all the appointments scheduled and for the medical team to review whether you are healthy enough to give a kidney with essentially no risk to your health. Your cardiovascular health, physical fitness, even mental health will be assessed. If there are any questionable results, you will be called back for more testing.

Q: Does a donor need to live close to a recipient?

A: While there are slight benefits to having both surgeries in the same hospital, it is possible for the kidney to be transported, even cross-country. This is done frequently in paired exchange programs.

Q: The waitlist in California is so long, can you go to another state with a shorter waitlist?

A: Yes, I am currently listed in California, Arizona and Arkansas. After researching areas with shorter wait times, my wife and I visited those two additional transplant centers and went through the evaluation process at each. However, we’ve since been told that once shorter wait lists are published for one area, more people get listed there and the wait lists get longer.

Q: Why ask for a kidney from a living donor when you are waitlisted for a kidney?

A: Longer life, less sickness, fewer surgeries: waitlists are for kidneys from deceased donors. California’s waitlist is 10+ years long for people like me (O negative blood). Kidneys from living donors tend to last 15 – 20 years; I know two people whose kidneys from living donors have lasted more than 20 years; kidneys from deceased donors tend to last 7 – 10 years. A typical person on dialysis but otherwise in good health at my age (40s) has slightly better than a 50/50 chance of living 10 years without transplant. A transplant in another state would also require me to move my family to another state for a few months.

Q: What is your experience in dialysis?

A: The hemodialysis experience for a patient like me, with a previous surgery to provide safer access to my bloodstream: I drive to the dialysis facility, wait between 2 minutes and 60 minutes for treatment. I get called in, weigh myself, and sit in a recliner chair. A technician cleans the skin on my arm and sticks two large (15-gauge) needles into my left arm. One needle removes blood, the other returns my blood after cleaning. Treatment lasts 3 hours and 30 minutes. After treatment the needles are removed, my wound is bandaged and, after a few minutes, re-bandaged. Then I drive home. A few hours later if I’m not already asleep I collapse from exhaustion – hemodialysis is exhausting. The entire process takes about 4.5 hours, three times each week. Dialysis does two main things: it cleans the patient’s blood of toxins and it removes excess fluid that would otherwise have been expelled through functional kidneys. Dialysis doesn’t maintain health perfectly but it has kept me alive.

Q: What is your experience of life in kidney failure?

A: Kidney failure impacts every hour of my life. It impacts how long I need to sleep, what I can eat, how much I can drink, how I feel, and my ability to travel. Most days are a mix of good periods – where I don’t feel as well as I did before kidney failure but feel okay, and difficult periods where I am tired, exhausted or nauseous. Tiredness leads to less ability to focus, less ability to help around the house; exhaustion means an inability to do anything but sleep. Nausea is often a rolling sensation that can last for hours at a time. I haven’t vomited for a few months, which is a huge blessing – but did very regularly during my first year in dialysis.

The diet: low salt, low potassium, low phosphorous, low fluid volume (I stick to < 20 oz per day), high protein. Very limited quantities of tomatoes (limited Italian food), potatoes, tropical fruit, avocado: high potassium! Almost no restaurant food: very salty! High protein but limited beans and nuts. I regularly supplement with certain protein bars because they are portable and they have a lot of protein. I miss a lot of food – including Italian, Thai, Indian, bread (sometimes make my own without salt), and fruit-based smoothies.

Q: Have any potential donors offered you a kidney?

A: Yes, twice. A friend offered and was found to be unable to donate. A family member died suddenly and his parents worked with the hospital to see whether he and I were a match – we were not. I am so thankful for those who have offered!

Ask me anything: robert@saverobert.com