Are you an organ donor?

[wide awake]

I'm an organ donor, really don't understand why anyone wouldn't be...unless there are health issues that make it impossible. To me it shouldn't be a choice...they either give it to someone that can use it...or...they burn it or let it rot in the ground.

 

[ElizK]

I'm not an organ donor,nor will I ever be

No, but for a very good reason. Do you know your loved one's wishes? Would you be willing to make that choice if it were left up to you?

 

[Blondie]

I was told that since I tested positive for one copy of the R506Q (Factor V Leiden) mutation I couldn't be an organ donor.

 

[janette]

Oh, no! Just now read the story. How awful, especially since it arrived just hours too late. Was there no way to artificially perform the liver's function for him for that short time? (Sorry, not up on what function the liver serves.)

No there isn't. My FIL died of liver failure, there are very few treatments they said the only hope was that it would start working on it's own. Transplants are the only treatment for liver failure, in my FIL's case that wasn't an option due to other health issues.

So sad that anyone would die waiting.

 

[JennyMominRI]

No, but for a very good reason. Do you know your loved one's wishes? Would you be willing to make that choice if it were left up to you?

I would be a donor if I could. As far as I know everyone in my family wishes to be a donor

 

[wide awake]

Just read the replies about BF working in the ER, and one PP who worked in a trauma center...am I just dumb ? Why would they take someone's organs that belonged to them unless they knew they were going to die ? You can't pay someone for an organ...unless it is on the black market...so what is the point of hastening someone's death because they're a donor ? Whoever is getting the organ may reject it anyway ! You just don't know...my donor stuff is on my DL, and DH KNOWS how strongly I feel about this issue...so if I'm Ms. Veg, let them take whatever they want.

I don't mean to be insensitive, but this is just not a big thing to me...if I couldn't be me, I wouldn't want whatever organs were letting me linger in some kind of twilight type of life. And me is a bright, energetic, witty, loving, extremely capable, attractive woman...my sister and parents know my wishes on this issue, and all of them would abide by them...DH probably not...but that is what paperwork other than the DL is for. DH is a wonderful man, but not as realistic as my birth family.

 

[binny]

Some facts:

Each day a lucky 55 people (or so) receive an organ transplant,
but another 55,000 are on the waiting list.
10 people on the waiting list die each day,
because not enough organs are available.
Four thousand of them die each year while waiting.
Every 16 minutes a new name is added
to the National Organ Transplant waiting list.





And a wonderful poem


To Remember Me - I will live forever
Robert N. Test

The day will come when my body will lie upon a white sheet neatly tucked under four corners of a mattress located in a hospital; busily occupied with the living and the dying. At a certain moment a doctor will determine that my brain has ceased to function and that, for all intents and purposes, my life has stopped.
When that happens, do not attempt to instill artificial life into my body by the use of a machine. And don't call this my deathbed. Let it be called the bed of life, and let my body be taken from it to help others lead fuller lives.

Give my sight to the man who has never seen a sunrise, a baby's face or love in the eyes of a woman.
Give my heart to a person whose own heart has caused nothing but endless days of pain.

Give my blood to the teenager who was pulled from the wreckage of his car, so that he might live to see his grandchildren play.

Give my kidneys to the one who depends on a machine to exist from week to week.

Take my bones, every muscle, every fiber and nerve in my body and find a way to make a crippled child walk.

Explore every corner of my brain.

Take my cells, if necessary, and let them grow so that, someday a speechless boy will shout at the crack of a bat and a deaf girl will hear the sound of rain agianst her window.

Burn what is left of me and scatter the ashes to the winds to help the flowers grow.

If you must bury something, let it be my faults, my weakness and all prejudice against my fellow man.

Give my sins to the devil.

Give my soul to God.

If, by chance, you wish to remember me, do it with a kind deed or word to someone who needs you. If you do all I have asked, I will live forever.
Robert N. Test

 

[Stitchfans]

yes I am

 

[Disney1fan2002]

I will never forget the story about the dad getting his daughter's heart. It was a movie on Lifetime, but I think it was a true story.

The dad had a heart problem. He was on a donor list, getting sicker and sicker. His 18yo daughter was killed in a car accident, the Dr suggested her heart. At 1st the dad was horrified...but the family realized it would be a way for the daughter's heart to keep beating. He took the heart.

Sad, sad story. I am an organ donor. Not sure what they can take from me, since I have autoimmune hepatitis and toxoplasmsis in the eyes....but maybe my heart and kidneys can keep someone alive. Also, I think they harvest skin as well, and I certainly have enough of that, to serve half of a burn center!

 

[JuneCleaver]

YUP...am the sister in law of a Kidney transplant patient!

She's on year 6 after the transplant...happy and healthy!

June

 

[Tinkerbell_Girl]

Yes I am too.

 

[foxfire]

Yes, I am. My family all know my wishes and I have it listed on my driver's license that I wish to be a donor.

 

[Ava83]

Yes both DH and I are

 

[4greatboys]

My family has made that commitment should the question ever come up.

Blondie and Jenny Im sorry you guys cannot.

 

[mrsv98]

Yup and as of 1/1/06 IL became one of the states that will take an organ donation with just an organ donor card and does not require consent of next of kin. I am happy about this. DH has a problem with donation and I would definately want everything possible to be used.

I am not allowed to donate blood because I lived in England in the 1990's and I am not sure about bone marrow, I need to look into that.

 

[EltonJohn]

And have you made your wishes known to your family?

Yes and Yes, but I do not wish my heart to be donated. I would like my heart to be buried in Texas somewhere.

 

[BWVDenise]

I just found out about a week or so ago that my SIL is NOT an organ donor, nor does she wish to be. I can't tell you how disturbing that has been to me. I just keep thinking, well, what if someday SHE is the one who needs an organ? Her reason is that she just wants to be buried with all of her parts. My dh has attended autopsies and told her what would really happen to her organs but that didn't seem to change her mind. I guess I don't know her as well as I thought I did.

 

[Serena]

yes..

 

[chell]

Yes I am a donor and my family does know my wishes.

 

[dixipixi]

I am an organ donor. My grandpa had a kidney transplant many years ago. I know how happy we were when he was called and told to come in they had a kidney for him. If I could do that for another family, why wouldn't I?