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gigabytes of usage. Data thresholds may vary. From KQED. When Carol Offen's son needed a kidney,

she didn't hesitate to offer her own, but she still had a lot of questions.

In the United States, nearly 100,000 people are waiting for a kidney transplant.

Patients can wait for years, five, six, seven, and every day, 12 people die of kidney disease.

That's why living kidney donations are becoming more popular. We're joined by

Carol Offen. She's co-author of the book The Insider's Guide to Living Kidney Donation and Dr. Nancy

Asher, an organ transplant expert at UCSF and past president of the Transplantation Society,

who is also a kidney donor. And we want to hear from you. Have you or a family

member received a kidney donation? Are you waiting for a donation? Or have you donated a kidney or

another organ? Give us a call now at 1866-733-6786. That's 1866-736. You can also get in touch with us on Twitter and Facebook.

We're at KQED Forum or email your questions to forum at kQED.org.

Carol, I want to hear how your journey into this world began.

Talk about, I think, what was a surprising turn in your life when your son, unfortunately,

got sick.

Well, it was actually very gradual, and it was slow, and then everything changed almost overnight.

He was diagnosed with kidney disease when he was in college.

He had no risk factors.

He was a healthy, young, thin kid.

And he had a strep infection and a lingering strep infection.

...