An estimated 17 people die each day in the U.S. waiting for an organ transplant from a deceased donor, according to federal data. The vast majority are in need of a kidney. But simply waiting to get pulled off the years-long waitlist is not their only option. The National Kidney Registry recently facilitated its 10,000th transplant from a living donor — someone who willingly gave up a kidney to a friend, family member or even a complete stranger. That includes one Albuquerque man who received a new kidney and lease on life from a longtime friend.
Scott Plunket first spoke with KUNM about his search for a kidney donor last year for a story about New Mexico’s record organ transplants. At the time, he had staked a large red sign into his front yard that read, “I need a kidney!” Now, nine months later, the sign is no more.
“It went from “I need a kidney!” to “a kidney!” Plunket told KUNM this month. “And I’ve run into several people who were like, ‘Yeah, the sign went away and we were like, what happened?’”

Plunket had been on the waitlist while undergoing dialysis for kidney failure.
“And I didn’t know how much longer I could hang on, honestly,” he said.
Rather than simply wait for a donor or himself to die, he worked with the National Kidney Registry (NKR) to actively search for a living donor. The organization gave him a website to tell his story and business cards to hand out. He made a logo, a Youtube channel and that big yard sign — anything he could think of to find a donor in time.
Then, after a few false hopes over more than a year, while sitting in a dialysis chair last summer, Plunket got news that his friend Ana June was a match.
“I’m literally watching the blood go out of me through a machine, back in, and it’s exhausting and it’s awful,” he said, “and I get this text with these two dancing kidneys from Ana that said, ‘We’re going to share a kidney!’”
He said he woke up from surgery feeling immediately better, as if ready to jump on the bed in the ICU.
“I would describe it like being in a jail cell and getting clemency,” he said. “It’s just miraculous, transformative. Four and a half months later, we just went through Christmas and I kind of had the gift of a completely new life.”
Plunket’s surgeon, Dr. Shelly Wilson, the surgical director of transplantation at Presbyterian Healthcare Services, said getting an organ from a living donor has multiple benefits.
“Living donation gets someone off the list, usually gets them transplanted faster than if they had to wait for a deceased donor, and it’s a very high-quality kidney,” she said.

Wilson said that, while deceased donor kidneys last around 11 years after transplantation, those from living donors average 18 years. Especially for people under 65 years old, that means a better quality of life and more years to live it.
Because of that, and the jam-packed waitlist, Wilson said there has been “a big push” for living donations nationally. Still, they only make up around 10% of transplants her center performs.
To help facilitate more, NKR runs a program for “paired donations.” If a donor is willing and able to give a kidney, but is not a match with their intended recipient, “chances are, there’s another pair that’s in a similar position,” Wilson said.
“And so, Donor A can transplant to Recipient B and Donor B can transplant to Recipient A, and they actually do a swap,” she explained.
Donors must also go through extensive testing to ensure they are healthy enough to live a quality life with just one kidney. Living Donor Coordinator at Presbyterian, Melissa Rains, said only about 5% of people who show interest make it through the clinic’s process.

Living donors do not have to pay anything out of pocket — either the transplant center or the recipient’s insurance picks up the bill. Rains said the financial stress for donors usually comes from taking time away from work to go through testing, surgery and weeks of recovery.
That is another place where NKR steps in to help make more transplants possible.
“They have a Donor Shield protection that offers lost-wage reimbursement up to 12 weeks, travel and lodging reimbursement and covers any uncovered complications,” she said. “They also get prioritized for a living donor kidney should they ever need a kidney in the future.”
Then there is the issue of simply finding people willing to donate.
“It’s a different kind of person who is willing to be that selfless and say, ‘I have absolutely nothing wrong with me. Go ahead, cut me open,’” Rains said.
People like Plunket’s donor, Ana June. She agreed that finding the time was the biggest challenge after asking herself if she was OK donating her kidney to a friend.

“And I said, ‘Yes, I am,’ because I know it’ll make all the difference for him,” June told KUNM. “My family, we don’t have a history of kidney issues, and I have a supportive family, I’m in the right place in my life. And I want to be able to give in that way.”
While recovery was a tough four weeks, including some “pretty miserable” days of pain management, she said she is pretty much back to normal.
“I haven’t felt any different now having one kidney as opposed to two. I can’t take ibuprofen anymore, but that doesn’t matter. I’ve got a scar — actually, three — but it’s not a huge deal,” she said. “It was a really amazing experience. Yeah, painful, but I don’t know, that didn’t deter me. I hope more people consider it.”

While June said she hesitates to use heroic language to describe what she did for her friend, she said she does recognize that Plunket now has a future that he did not have before.
“It turns out that having a working kidney is really handy. I highly recommend it,” Plunket said, chuckling. “I got a great used part from a great, great person at a great price. That’s how I like to summarize it.”
Plunket has a lot of plans now that he is on the mend, including going back to work, becoming an advocate for living donation and trying his hand at standup comedy.