I have been a nurse since 1981 and a transplant coordinator at a hospital here in Cleveland for nine years. Before that I spent nine years as a dialysis nurse. I am the person who calls a patient at two o'clock in the morning to say, "We may have a kidney for you. How soon can you get here?" It is the best phone call I know how to make.

I have also been sent the kidney thieves story by eleven different people. I kept count. In order of appearance:

So I am going to answer it once, here, the way I would write a handout for a patient's family: plain questions, plain answers, no jargon if I can help it. Then I am going to ask you for something.

Please note: this is my own page, written at my own kitchen table. It does not speak for my hospital, and it is not medical advice for you personally. For that, talk to your own doctor.

Part One: The Story

Q. What does the story say, exactly?
A man is away on a business trip. He goes out for a drink in the evening, a friendly stranger buys him one, and the next thing he knows he is waking up in a hotel bathtub full of ice, with a note telling him to call for help. At the hospital they tell him one of his kidneys has been removed. Depending on who forwarded it to you, it happened in New Orleans, or Las Vegas, or Houston, and the warning came from a hospital, or a police department, or a friend whose cousin works for the airlines. The city changes. The hospital changes. The bathtub never does.

Q. Did it happen?
No. It is an urban legend, a story that travels from person to person and gets better with every telling. No hospital, no transplant program and no police department has ever turned up a real case. Nobody it happened to has ever come forward. It always happened to a friend of a friend, and when you go looking for the friend, he turns out to be somebody else's friend.

Q. All right, but could it happen?
Let me tell you what it actually takes to move a kidney from one person to another, and you can decide for yourself whether it could be done in a hotel room by a stranger from the lounge.

Q. Can't any kidney go into anybody?
No, and this is the first big hole in the story. Before a transplant we check three things:

• Blood type. The donor's blood type has to be compatible with the recipient's, or the kidney will not work.
• Tissue type. Everybody's cells carry a set of markers that the body uses to tell "me" from "not me." We test these in a laboratory and look for the closest match we can get.
• The crossmatch. Right before the transplant, the lab mixes a little of the recipient's blood with cells from the donor, to make sure the recipient's body isn't already armed against that kidney. If the crossmatch comes out wrong, that kidney does not go into that patient. Period.

All of this takes a laboratory, trained people and hours of work. The stranger in the lounge doesn't know your blood type. Do you? (Find out. It's handy.)

Q. Couldn't a doctor who had gone bad just do the operation?
Removing a kidney is major surgery. It is done in an operating room, under general anesthesia, by a surgical team: a surgeon and an assistant, an anesthesiologist, nurses, all of them scrubbed and gowned, with sterile instruments and a great deal of equipment. Afterwards the patient spends several days in a hospital bed. He is not going to sit up in a bathtub and reach for the phone.

Q. What happens to the kidney once it's out?
It is flushed with a special cold solution, packed on ice and rushed to the patient who is waiting for it. We want it transplanted within a day or two at the very most, and the sooner the better. So whoever took it would need a matched recipient, a second surgical team and a hospital standing by at the other end, all ready and waiting, all keeping the secret. I have trouble getting a team together on a holiday weekend for a perfectly ordinary transplant. A secret one is out of the question.

Q. Couldn't they sell it?
Not in this country. Buying or selling human organs for transplant is against federal law under the National Organ Transplant Act of 1984. Nobody can pay for a kidney and nobody can be paid for one.

The national waiting list runs through UNOS, the United Network for Organ Sharing, in Richmond, Virginia. When a kidney becomes available, it goes to the patient the national system matches it to, by blood type, tissue match, time on the list and other medical factors. Every organ is accounted for, from the donor to the recipient. There is no back door. Nobody shows up at a hospital with a kidney in a picnic cooler and gets it put into somebody, no matter how much money changes hands.

Q. Then why does everybody believe it?
Because it's a good scary story, and because the people who send it mean well. Every one of my eleven was trying to protect somebody they cared about. My mother was trying to protect me, and I love her for it. Stories like this have been passed around for as long as people have told stories; e-mail just lets them travel faster than they ever could on a campfire.

Q. So it's harmless?
Not quite, and this is the part that keeps me up at night more than the phone does. Every so often somebody tells me they won't sign a donor card because they've heard that organs are stolen and sold. They heard it from this story. Meanwhile tens of thousands of people in this country are waiting on the national list, and most of them are waiting for a kidney. Some of them are my patients. I know their children's names.

If you've read the e-mail, chuckle and delete it. And then, if you would, do something else.

Part Two: Please Become a Donor It takes about five minutes, and it may be the most generous thing you ever do. 1. Sign a donor card. You can get one at most hospitals and many doctors' offices. Sign it, and have two people sign as witnesses. Members of your family make the best witnesses, which brings me to the most important step. 2. Tell your family. I cannot say this strongly enough. When someone dies and could be a donor, we talk with the family. A family that knows what you wanted almost always honors it. A family that never talked about it has to guess, on the worst day of their lives. Don't make them guess. Tell them at dinner tonight. It's a short conversation. 3. Mark your driver's license, where your state offers it. Many states let you say yes when you renew. Ask at the license office. One donor can help many people: two kidneys, and other organs and tissues besides. Last year I got a Christmas card from a man who had been on dialysis three days a week for six years. It said, "I went fishing." That was all it said. It's on my refrigerator.

Part Three: Other Things Patients Ask Me

Q. Can a person really live with one kidney?
Yes, and live well. Some people are born with only one and never find out until a test for something else turns it up. When a living donor gives a kidney, the one that's left grows a little and takes over the work of both. Our living donors go back to their jobs, their gardens and their grandchildren. We do ask them to keep up with regular checkups, which is good advice for everybody.

Q. Can I give a kidney while I'm alive?
Many people do, most often to a brother, sister, parent or child, and sometimes to a husband, wife or close friend. A living donor goes through a careful medical workup first, and nobody is ever pressured. You can change your mind at any point, and the team will keep that private.

Q. If I sign a donor card, will the doctors try less hard to save me?
No. The doctors and nurses caring for you are not the transplant team. We are not even called until after death has been declared. Their only job is you.

Q. Can my family still have an open-casket funeral?
Yes.

Q. Will my family be billed for the donation?
No. The donor's family does not pay for donation.

Q. Am I too old, or not healthy enough, to be a donor?
Don't rule yourself out. The doctors decide at the time what can be used. Sign the card and let them worry about it.

Q. What does my church say?
Most major religions support donation as an act of love and charity. If you're unsure, ask your minister, priest or rabbi. I have yet to meet one who said no.

Q. How long will I wait for a kidney?
It varies a great deal, depending on your blood type, your tissue type and other things. For some people it's months; for many it's years. Your coordinator can tell you more about your own situation. (Call us. We like hearing from you.)

Q. Will I have to take medicine forever?
Yes. Anti-rejection medicines, every day, on time, for as long as you have your transplant. Set an alarm. Get a pill box with the days on it. Your new kidney is counting on you.

Q. Should I stop staying in hotels?
No, Mom. Stay in all the hotels you want. Order room service. Take a bubble bath, if you like, and use warm water.

If you'd like to see other e-mail scares taken apart, a chemistry student in North Carolina keeps The Legend Lab, where he checks the forwards his aunt sends him. He has this one too, in his case log, stamped HOAX.