It’s great giving blood when you’re O negative. I do absolutely nothing to produce this stuff, I don’t even drink water very often, and yet I have these constant, positive interactions with the donation people. Every phone call starts with a five-minute introduction about how great I am. Every email has a heartwarming story about someone who needed O negative, and then got it, and now they’re alive, because of me. Sometimes they’ll randomly send me a badge or a plastic bracelet saying “first responder” on it, which makes me sound like a hero who ran, didn’t walk, towards an emergency, as opposed to what I am: a person who goes into town once every four months for 20 minutes of no-big-deal and gets given a pint of squash and an orange Club at the end of it. I love it. Last year, they asked me to go in on Boxing Day, and I said no, don’t be daft, it’s Boxing Day, and I still came away from that feeling like a king.
Then, this morning, I got an email with a slightly different ask: blood is great and all, but have you ever heard of a living organ donation? For instance, would you like to give away a kidney? It was a bit of a gear shift, somewhere in the region of: “Thank you for your direct debit of five quid a month, would you like to give us your house?” But I gave it due consideration. I know three people with only one kidney: one because she was born with a kidney problem; one gave his to his sister; one, I don’t know what happened to hers – it turns out this is the kind of thing you have to wait to be told.
None of them are any less healthy than me, but all of them, I’m hazarding, have healthier lifestyles. It could be that lacking a kidney encourages you to take better care of your other one, and while you’re there, the rest of your organs. Or it could be there’s an adaptation effect, similar to the way having poor eyesight can make your hearing really good. Or – this might be an extremely long shot – to think that, post-organ donation, I’d be as high-functioning as my single-kidneyed associates, except my morals, sheesh: they’d be off the charts.
You should never start thinking about extravagantly pro-social behaviour, particularly not on a Monday morning. Engage with one act of life-changing generosity that you don’t intend to do, and your thoughts slide inexorably to all the other things – smaller, easier, less consequential things – that you also don’t do. I haven’t volunteered for anything since Covid, and that was only because I was bored. I only go on a third of the protests I agree with, and there are probably more that I would agree with, if I engaged. I interviewed a nurse on strike once, who said in passing that people in the north-west of England know never to turn up to a picket line empty-handed; I resolved, any time I saw a picket line after that, to take some sandwiches, and I have never, ever done that. I’ve never done what they call an “arrestable action” on a demonstration, despite having been persuaded ages ago that the only thing that’s going to change the world’s course on the climate crisis is mass civil disobedience. I don’t give enough away. I see a graph about child poverty, get angry for a while, then file it at the back of my mind. It is terrifying to consider the amount of time, energy and money I could share, for the concrete or future benefit of others, before I got to actual body parts. Terrifying, but maybe also useful and galvanising; something to work with, a break from the usual crushing sense of impotence.
Anyway, cheers, donation services, another great interaction: you can’t have a kidney, but I am going to live a better life, and maybe, down the line, give you some platelets.
Zoe Williams is a Guardian columnist
If I give away a kidney, will it make me a better person?
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18.03.2024
It’s great giving blood when you’re O negative. I do absolutely nothing to produce this stuff, I don’t even drink water very often, and yet I have these constant, positive interactions with the donation people. Every phone call starts with a five-minute introduction about how great I am. Every email has a heartwarming story about someone who needed O negative, and then got it, and now they’re alive, because of me. Sometimes they’ll randomly send me a badge or a plastic bracelet saying “first responder” on it, which makes me sound like a hero who ran, didn’t walk, towards an emergency, as opposed to what I am: a person who goes into town once every four months for 20 minutes of no-big-deal and gets given a pint of squash and an orange Club at the end of it. I love it. Last year, they asked me to go in on Boxing Day, and I said no, don’t be daft, it’s Boxing Day, and I still came away from that feeling like a........
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