Not Always Available Even If You Need It

There is something important I really want you to know. I am not sure what you will think about it. Yet I think it is so very important that we talk a minute.

 

I am working for you all the time and you are probably unaware of that. I work with a team of expert professionals and we are all working for you, and you might have no idea. We ask people about something.

If something happens to you, what do you want us to do?

 

You know how the Red Cross makes sure that there is an emergency blood supply available for you if you need it? We are entrusted with making sure there are organs and tissues available if you need them. In my area we are called "Gift of Life Donor Program." Our challenge is, our donors can't get a baby sitter and run over to a church or school and donate. We cannot actually talk to our donors. We can only talk to their family about them, after they die.

 

 

One day in our office parking lot a woman stopped a group of us. She wagged her finger at us and said: "If anyone says no to donation I want you to tell that family this. The day came for me when the casseroles and the phone calls stopped coming. Then the only thing that got me out of bed in the morning was that on the worst day of my life, my baby girl saved five people."

 

The unimaginable thing had happened to this mother. Her 17 year-old daughter had died. This mother, hours after receiving this news, had said "yes" to helping complete strangers through organ donation. It gave her something good to think about in the sad days after her daughters’ death.

 

That is how we work for you. We were the ones that asked that mother.

 

If you or your family member were on a waiting list for an organ transplant the day she died, that 17 year old and her generous mother might have saved your life through transplantation. Imagine how thankful you would be for a gift like that.

 

 If you ever need an organ transplant and you live near my team you live in the most generous area of the country. People say yes to organ donation all the time to us here. You may not hear about it because the thing is, we cannot ASK many people to donate. It is rare to "qualify." So it is unique and special for a family to even be asked.

 

One hundred people might die and we might only be able to ask one or two
families. Ninety eight people out of one hundred will not even qualify. So if your family is asked, they should take a breath and time to think. This is the most important question they might ever get, at the hardest time to be asked anything. Your family might be the only family to be asked this question this week, this month, or even this year, depending on the hospital. Rare.

 

Your family can choose to take someone's life in their hands. Maybe up to eight someone's. I hope you told your family what you wanted to make it easier.

 

Why is it so rare? It is because you are most likely able to donate if you have
a devastating neurological injury that actually has caused your death,
and you are on a breathing machine while your family gets that news from the Medical Team.

Technology and a breathing machine can keep your heart beating for an extra day or so when you, or your family, say that it is okay. That extra day or two on a breathing machine is powerful time.  Life saving time. It gives births, weddings, fishing trips, proms, parents, grandparents, children, and bowls of strawberry shortcake with whipped cream back to others. You know, life things. Precious life things.

 

If you or your family has said, "yes" to donation, it takes non-stop work to find recipients for the gifts you can give. If you are on a waiting list, be amazed and relieved and encouraged. There is a team of dedicated professionals behind the scenes. We actually get burnt out sometimes, missing our own lives while we try to save yours. Just the other day I arrived at a hospital at 8 AM and I did not leave until the next day at 1 PM. Twenty- nine hours of work in a row, no sleep. I worked on behalf of three children and a wife that loved a generous, kind man who died, and they knew he would want to help people. I worked for the people and the families he saved. In the world of transplant these long days happen all the time. Transplant Coordinators and Hospital Transplant Teams are this dedicated across the country and they are working for you 365 days a year.

 

We manage these hours because there is something about working with your family at such a delicate time. It is so rewarding to get to know your family and walk them through how you can give life, even as everyone is so very sad about your death. We manage because we meet recipients all the time. We manage because we gain momentum and we become an expert about you, the generous loving person that might be a donor. We actually create a thick chart that is almost like a book, about you.

 

If a medical crisis happens to you, your family will be in crisis as they hear of it.

Your local transplant experts will be contacted by the medical team. We will arrive at the hospital, no matter the hour or the weather. We will leave our children on their Birthdays.

We will arrive and we will wait and try to determine the best time to ask your family. Most of us will have a certain sense of nervousness. We do not know what your family will say. We are the only ones that represent the unknown families that are counting on us to save the lives of the ones they love.

 

We all want to do just what you would want us to do.

 

This is how important you are. Across the country there are surgeons who are some of the most precise and talented and sacrificing beings on this earth. They have incredible skill. In every state across the USA there are magnificent, dedicated teams just like ours in Philadelphia. And we all can do nothing for anyone unless you or your family chooses to give the gift of life.

 

If something happens to you, what do you want us to do?

 

Melissa Regan CPTC