Tale of two kidneys: A love story

NOVO News | Indianapolis | Ed Wenick
Photo: Karen and Randy now share a kidney: hers.   Mark A. Lee

On May 8, 2013, a woman named Karen Irwin posted a picture of her kidney on Facebook.

Not an X-ray. Not an MRI. Not a drawing, not a painting, not an artist's conception. Her actual, honest-to-God organ; a photograph snapped by an attending nurse in the OR while Irwin's kidney was, in Karen's words, "between gigs."

I commented on the photograph: "The top part looks like bacon. The rest looks like British food."

Actually, that was just me trying, and failing, to be comical. The top part did look bacon. The rest looked like a boneless chicken breast - complete with rib meat - that had been left on the cutting board a little too long. Kinda ... pinkish/bluish/weirdish.

By the way, before you judge, I wasn't the only one who chimed in with a Hannibal Lecter-esque "human-organ-as-food" gag. A lot of Karen's friends, it turns out, are equally morbid.

They were also equally touched by what that photo meant.

Listen:

Karen Irwin's kidney has come unstuck in Karen Irwin.

It's now stuck in the dude she's dating.
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______________________________________________________ 
"You have the power to SAVE lives." 
To register as a donor in California: 
www.donateLIFEcalifornia.org | www.doneVIDAcalifornia.org 
Outside California: 
www.organdonor.gov | www.donatelife.net

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