I was pointed to this You Tube video about a student at Illinois State University named Amanda Gedraitis. At age 21, Amanda became the youngest non-directed kidney donor (In America? The world?), and is a hero in my book.

A "non-directed" living kidney donor is a living person who offers a kidney to whomever the hospital deems appropriate. Interestingly, the kidney waiting list maintained by the United Network For Organ Sharing (UNOS) isn't used for non-directed living donors. A committee from the hospital makes the pick.

I've always felt that non-directed donors like Amanda live on a higher moral plane than the rest of us. Even when I donated my kidney to a stranger (Hi Brenda!), I felt the need to pick her myself from the wide menu of self-starters on the Matching Donors website (www.matchingdonors.com). I'm a bit of a control freak, so relying on the good judgement of actual professionals was too much power for me to relinquish.

Anyway, I digress. This entry is about Amanda. Here she is: