Happy National Donate Life Month!

[Deleted]

April is National Donate Life Month. 

www.organdonor.gov/index.html

Today marks the 10th anniversary of my cousin's kidney transplant, the best April Fool's Day present my family has ever gotten. For those of you who don't know the story, my mom was set to donate one of her kidneys the morning of April 1st, 2003 to my then-19 year old cousin. My mom was a better match to my cousin than most people are with their own children, a miracle in and of itself. 

During her last dialysis treatment on the afternoon of Monday, March 31st, the transplant team came to my cousin, her mom and my mom - who was just about to leave to go to be admitted - to tell her they had a cadaver kidney from a young man who perished in a motorcycle accident. By the time the surgery was complete, it was Tuesday, April 1st.

It has been 10 years and she has not had a single complication - knock on wood. We are truly grateful every day for the miracle of life the young man gave to our family.

I don't want to be preachy, and I understand there are religious and moral reasons to not become an organ donor, but if you don't know anything about it and are not an organ donor I would hope you would at least find out more about it to make an informed decision.

[feistypants]

Happy transplant-versary to your cousin!

I've seen both sides of the transplant decision as a nurse -- donor and recipient -- and I can tell you that the decision is often the family's greatest comfort. Knowing that their loved one will live on makes them happier than anything else.

Please, consider donating. Transplants are a gift and a miracle.

[genet313]

happy day to your family!!!!!  my dad's 6 year transplant-versary is coming up on the 13th...sadly his is not faring as well, but he's had 6 great happy years thanks to my mom, his donor.  another crazy match story.  

organ donors really do save lives, and not just the life of the recipient, but every one of that recipient's family members and friends because every day is one more day with the person you love.

[sparkythelawyer]

This is awesome, and I will put it on my FB page.

On July 18, 2008, my  mother received the most amazing gift she could ever hope for, from someone she never met, someone who thought beyond their own grief and pain and donated the lungs of their dying loved one.  While my mom only got three years before a totally different disease (pancreatic cancer) killed her, she lived more in those three years after the transplant than in the fifteen years before.  Here's the article I posted on my sorority's foundation website when we volunteered at the 2010 Transplant games. Some of it is exerpts from the letter I sent her donor's family.  Excuse the weird shading, I can't seem to get rid of it:

*********************************************************************************************************************

<o:p> </o:p>

The trouble with writing letters
like this is that you never know who you are writing to.  I have no idea if the person reading this
letter is a husband, a wife, a sister, a brother, a mother or a father.  So I will tell you a bit about me.  I am a daughter. I am a daughter to a kind
and hard-working 60-year-old retired nurse, mother to 3 daughters and
grandmother to the most perfect 2-year-old boy. I can tell you that she suffered for almost 15 years due to a disease that started with a dry hacking
cough that would not go away, crescendoed to a frightening phone call from the
doctor while I was getting ready for my high-school prom, and left her lungs
scarred and dying, unable to support her, unable to put oxygen into her body,
starving her heart for oxygenated blood, causing her to be unable to walk 10
steps without having to stop and rest because she was in pain and dizzy.<o:p></o:p>

My mom’s disease required her to carry heavy
oxygen tanks every time she wanted to leave the house to do something as basic
as go to the store.  Eventually, a solution appeared: She just stopped
going. My beautiful mother, tall and blonde with green eyes I’ve always envied
(redheads always want green eyes, but frequently settle for brown), and pretty,
fair coloring, became a ghost of herself. Her pretty coloring turned grey and
waiflike, suffering from the same loss of oxygen the rest of her body had
experienced. Her hands, which I could describe to a T now, turned blue and
purple from the inability to keep warm. Her cough became her calling card,
something that always told you where she was. It became a joke of sorts in our
family: If you were looking for mom, just be quiet a moment, she’ll start
coughing and you’ll be able to find her.  

On July 17, 2008, my family got the phone call
that there might be a set of lungs for my mom. So off we went – my sisters, my
father and me – on the first flight out the next morning. Off we went into the
unknown, not sure if this surgery would happen and absolutely clueless as to
what would await afterwards. And on July 18, 2008, in the evening, my mother
received the gift that would save her life: a set of lungs.<o:p></o:p>

Since then, my mother has had the chance to
thrive and flourish in a way she never dreamed possible. She got to hold her grandson. She renewed her
wedding vows with my father after 32 years of marriage. She was able to see me
walk across the stage at my law-school graduation. And I can tell you that we
both wept during my graduation, awestruck that she got to be a part of an event
that by all rights she never would have lived to see if not for the generous
gift of life from someone we never met – someone who was going through the
worst kind of pain imaginable and who, in his or her grief and sadness, decided
that other people should be spared from their pain, sickness and grief.<o:p></o:p>

We talk about my mother’s donor every now and
then. From what we have learned, our donor was a young man with a real zest for
life and a taste for adventure. My mother remembers that when she needs to do
things like exercise by saying things like, “Well, Nick didn’t sit around doing
nothing with these lungs, and neither can I.” We do not keep in touch with our
donor family, but they remain in our thoughts and our prayers still.<o:p></o:p>

I will likely never meet the family that made
the decision to give my mother the gift of life, and it is hard not to have someone to thank in person. But for me, being able to come here, to the
Transplant Games, and to be a part of the celebration of life that organ
donation creates for thousands of people every year, allows me to say THANK
YOU. Thank you to the families who generously gave what you did not have to
give. Thank you to the doctors and the nurses and the caregivers who work so tirelessly
so that everyone, no matter what their ailment is, has a fighting chance at
life. Thank you to the scientists, the researchers and all of those people
working to show the world just what can be done when the powers of science and
medicine join forces with the power of faith.  

[Deleted]

sparkythelawyer, your mom's story made me tear up. genet313, I hope your dad's health improves, or at least is stable enough to enjoy another 6+ years.

One additional thing is that a lot of people are organ donors, but their families object in some way. It is important that if you are, or wish to be, an organ donor that you inform your family or include it in your health directives.

[heliocentric]

OMG, thanks for this reminder. Today is the anniversary of my mom's kidney transplant. 4 years!

We should all celebrate!

[Deleted]

Apr 1, 2013 10:00:14 GMT -5 heliocentric said:

OMG, thanks for this reminder. Today is the anniversary of my mom's kidney transplant. 4 years!

We should all celebrate!

Wow, that is awesome!

We always celebrate in some way. For the first anniversary, we had a big party at my cousin's favorite restaurant. Now, we do dinner out with a smaller group.

My cousin turns 30 in a few months so she is having a big 30th birthday party/10th anniversary extravaganza all at once.

[Deleted]

What I failed to mention in my OP was that after my mom went through the extensive testing, including a psychological evaluation, the surgery was initially scheduled for March 17th. In our Irish family, we considered a surgery on St. Patrick's day to be good luck. However, my cousin broke her foot a few weeks prior, and after the surgery they wanted her up and about within two days. With a walking boot on, they felt this would complicate things, so they pushed it back a week. Then my mom developed a rash, and they weren't sure what was causing it. They wanted to rule out shingles so they pushed it back to April 1st.


Also, on a side note, the surgeon who performed my cousin's surgery was later a heart transplant recipient.

www.umdnj.edu/umcweb/marketing_and_communications/publications/umdnj_magazine/spring2007/2.htm

[heygrey]

When I was in high school one of my good friends died in a freak accident. He had expressed his wishes to be an organ donor to his parents and through his death 32 other people lived. His parents had the opportunity to meet most of the receivers and they've done a lot of volunteering and speaking to raise awareness. While I'm still often sad that his life was cut short, I like to think of the people he saved. It's an incredible gift.

[flatlan]

Thanks for sharing!