In Sickness and in Health
My partner Ronny and I have been together for more than eight years. When I met him, he had end-stage renal failure, meaning that neither of his kidneys was functioning. He had to do dialysis three times a week just to stay alive. Ronny could not work and could not travel. Furthermore, doctors would not consider transplant surgery because he was HIV-positive.
But a few years later, advances in HIV and immunosuppressive medications allowed him to get a transplant. In 2004, I donated my kidney to Ronny. Only a few hundred transplants had been done on HIV-positive patients at that point. Ours was the second one ever done in San Diego, and the first where the donor was the recipient’s partner.
Today Ronny is in much better health, and his kidney is doing great.
Aug. 1, 2006