By Tyler Paradis
Organ donation is the removal of portions of a deceased human body or a living donor for the purpose of transplanting these tissues into the bodies of people who need them in order to live or to improve the quality of their lives.
In cases of deceased donors, all incisions are surgically closed so that a traditional funeral can be had. One organ donor can help up to 50 people. Among the organs that can be donated are the heart, intestines, kidneys, lungs, the liver and the pancreas. Other tissues which can be donated are bones, tendons, corneas, heart valves and veins. Living donors can donate a lung, part of their liver or pancreas and a kidney. Among the most needed organs are hearts and livers because someone must die for the organ to be available.
Situations where this can be done are hard to come by. It only can be done when someone has been pronounced brain dead and it is certain that they will never regain consciousness. Only then can the transplant team remove their organs. Kidneys are in high need as well, but they are easier to obtain because a living donor can donate one and function with only one kidney for the rest of their lives. The important point here is that kidneys, livers, and hearts must come from donors that were living when the organs were removed.
In order to really understand the implications of organ donation, I contacted some people with the help of Donate Life Northwest to talk about their experiences. Donate Life Northwest is a local non-profit organization whose mission is to educate the public about organ, eye and tissue donation. I spoke with Linda Jordan, the mother of Bradley, who donated both of his kidneys, his heart and liver upon his accidental death. I called because I wanted to understand her experience of being the mother of someone who died and gave their organs. I was surprised by what I found out.
Bradley had always been interested in organ donation. He kept asking to sign up when he was young. When he turned 14, his mother gave him a sticker to put on his license. His mother told me that he "just wanted to help everyone he could." When he suffered severe head injuries in an accident, his mother realized that she owed it to him to have his wishes carried out. She found that having his organs donated made her son's death easier because some good came out of it. She said it "gave her the first grip" on sanity in her life by bringing some good out of a bad situation.
Through his death, he was able to save four lives. She told me that she regularly hears from the four recipients of Bradley's organs and that it is gratifying to know that they are alive and well with a piece of Bradley in them. It really did allow a positive to come from a negative.
In addition to talking to Linda, I talked to Bob Dexter, a recipient of two liver transplants, each from an anonymous donor. He is a Vietnam Veteran. He believes he got hepatitis C while serving in Vietnam. The treatment he received for the Hepatitis cured him of it, but also gave him liver cancer requiring that he get a transplant.
He waited only one week for his first liver transplant, however, six days after the transplant he got a blood clot in the artery going to his liver. They were able to unblock the artery but only after a third of his new liver died. The dead tissue later became infected making him ineligible for another transplant. When he did get well there were no transplants available and then he got sick again.
This cycle of sickness and unavailability of a suitable liver repeated itself over and over. He spent 11 months in the hospital when finally he received another transplant. He said that he was making funeral plans when he was notified that they had found him an organ. The transplant saved his life. He has been living healthily for the past three years. Bob is very grateful to the two people who donated their livers for him. He "pays it forward" by volunteering in advocacy of organ donation as well as being an organ donor himself.
As I listened to these stories I began to realize how huge of a gift organ donation is. You are giving someone their life back. How can you ever thank someone for the gift of life?
While these stories are very moving and encouraging, we must address the fact that far more people have less encouraging stories. Eighteen people die each day awaiting an organ transplant. The number of men, women and children in the United States in need of an organ transplant is approaching 100,000 with over 2,000 of these people living in the Pacific Northwest (www.unos.org/).
Of these people living in the Pacific Northwest, 74 percent need a kidney. Additionally, thousands more are awaiting a tissue or cornea transplant. One of the factors that evaluate a person's need for an organ is how sick they are. The sicker you are, the more priority you have to receive an organ.
In Bob's case, he was very sick, almost to the point of death. This gave him high priority.
The problem with this is that those who receive an organ may have gotten so sick that they will die of other complications. People spend time waiting not just because organs are not available or because they "aren't sick enough," but also because they must find organs which are compatible with the recipients' body (meaning their body's immune system doesn't reject it).
All of these problems would be less of an issue if more organs were available because there would be more of a chance of finding compatible organs and thus less of a wait time. People also would not have to be pushed to a point of near death before they received a transplant because there would be more organs available.
I have provided this information to you not to bring you down or depress you but to encourage you to do something about it. Ninety-two percent of the United States population supports organ donation; however, only 20 percent take the steps to make their wishes known, and only 1 percent of this remaining 20 percent die under the specific conditions that allow you to be an organ donor.
Many people elect not to sign up for organ donation because they believe that doctors will try less to save their lives in the event of a tragedy, but the reality is that doctors will always do everything they can, and the organ donor registry will only be consulted once everything possible has been done.
In addition to this fear, many are worried that signing up to be an organ donor may go against the morals of their religion. Organ donation is in fact supported by all major religions including the Roman Catholic Church.
You have the power to save lives by signing up to be an organ donor. All you have to do is take two minutes to sign up online and you could help improve the quality of life of up to 50 people and you could even save people's lives.
This is a two-way street. Someday you may be in a situation where you are waiting for an organ. Wouldn't you hope someone would want to help save your life? So I urge you to take action and make your wishes known.
Go to www.donatelifenw.org to learn more about donation in Oregon and to access the online Donor Registry.
Tyler Paradis is a junior biology and Spanish major
