Recently, there was a very interesting "thread" on the Yahoo kidney_transplants group having to do with writing to the donor family. Of course, this pertains to organ recipients that have received a cadaveric donation. But first, a little background.

Various organ procurement agencies encourage organ recipients to send a letter to the donor family thanking them for the organ. The identity of the donor is kept confidential, so it's not possible to write the family directly. However, the regional donor program will forward your note or letter to the donor family (I'm speaking about the US; other countries may be different).

I ended up sending my letter a little over a month after my surgery. I started writing it shortly after coming home, and made several revisions. I did this so that the letter I DID send would hopefully convey all of the thoughts I had that I felt important for the family to know. I didn't want to inadvertantly offend them or bring back painful memories, which is why I didn't send the first draft.

Although I would have preferred to have hand-written mine, I typed it. Between the tremors from the Prograf, along with the tremors I HAD before the Prograf, it would not have been legible had I written it by hand.

I pretty much included the information suggested by Gift of Life. Several weeks after sending it in, I received an aknowledgement from the Gift of Life Social Worker, but so far nothing from the family. I did include in the letter that they were welcome to contact me, but that I would understand if they didn't.

As for the thread on Yahoo, it started with a transplant recipient who was venting about an encounter with the recipient of a kidney/pancreas who had their transplant 4 years ago, and "hadn't gotten around to writing the donor family". The person starting the thread was a bit angry about this, and brought up that through his volunteer work with his local transplant organization, he has encountered "many a donor family whose loved one saved numerous lives but never got a note of appreciation".

There were more than a dozen replies, and they varied from "shock" to explanations as to why a recipient hadn't written to their donor family. One person wrote that perhaps the recipient hadn't gone through a lot with kidney failure and didn't have a full appreciation for the transplant, another had told of being in an abusive relationship when transplanted, and had other priorities, and yet another had received her 2nd transplant 3 days after Christmas. The donor was a father of 3 teen children, and the donor sent a letter to the family. She eventually heard from the wife, who thanked her for NOT sending the letter around the anniversary of the husband's death. She hadn't shown the letter to her children, but had planned on eventually showing it to her oldest son.

After reading the various responses, my personal opinion is that while there may be special situations, for the vast majority of the times, it's best for an organ recipient to write a note or letter of thanks, and let it up to the Social Worker at the Transplant Organization to decide what's best.