A woman in Colorado is claiming that doctors removed both of her healthy kidneys, telling her that the procedure is necessary. She is now considering legal action over the procedure that changed her life.
Kidney Surgery
In Colorado, 73-year-old Linda Woolley is considering taking legal action against the University of Colorado Hospital after doctors allegedly removed both of her healthy kidneys last May. Evidently, the doctors informed Woolley that they had to remove her kidneys because she likely had kidney cancer. However, the biopsy results from March 2018 revealed that there was “evidence of malignancy,” while biopsy results after the surgery showed “no evidence of carcinoma,” which means that there are no traces of cancer.
As a result of losing both of her healthy kidneys, Woolley now has to undergo four-hour dialysis treatments three times a week to maintain her life, and requires at least one healthy kidney. Unfortunately, the waiting time for kidney transplants may go for as long as seven years.
Naturally, Woolley is unhappy about the situation she is in now, saying that the dialysis treatments rob her of her life no matter how much she gets used to it.
That said, since talking to a local news station about her situation, at least nine people who are willing to donate their kidney have contacted the station.
Nephrectomy
A nephrectomy is the surgical removal of the kidney, whether one or both, or partially or completely. The people who need to undergo a nephrectomy may be those with injured, diseased, or cancerous kidneys, but it is also done to an organ donor to remove the healthy organ for donation.
Interestingly, people only need one kidney even if we have two of them since a single kidney can work just as well as two. However, people who have injured or disease kidneys, or those who have had both of their kidneys removed require dialysis or a transplant to survive.
Although a majority of kidney donors live long and full lives with just one kidney, they still require regular testing to see how well the kidney is working.
