In response to Dick Teresi's article published recently in the Wall Street Journal. Stories taken from:
The chance for a Father to see his Daughter.
I was an Army medic at the age of 18 and I married my beautiful wife at the age of 20. Later that year there was a chemical explosion in a laboratory where I was working, and the building literally blew up around me.
The accident caused me to lose my sight. Twenty-four
days later my first daughter was born. Doctors told me I would never get to see her.
For the next thirty years I lived with my wife and daughters as a blind person. Things were difficult, if not impossible.
I felt as if my daughters spent their entire childhood leading me around our farm. All I wished for during those years was to see my family before I died.
In 1999, a miraculous corneal transplant restored my sight. For the first time in my life I was looking at my children. My lovely wife was now a fifty-three year old grandmother. I couldn't say a word; all I could do was hold them and weep.
I was given a whole new life through transplantation, a new life that affects my entire family. There are not words in any language to thank the people who helped me.
The chance for a girl and her brother to play like other children.
Sister and brother, Roma and Lucas Ugarte, couldn't be more opposite. She's dark, he's fair. She likes to read and dance; he likes run, bike and skateboard.
"She's very quiet and laid back," their mom Julie said. "And he'll talk your ear off!"
But they do have one thing in common, Roma, 11, and Lucas, 6, have each had a kidney transplant. Roma's new kidney came from their father, Eduardo; Lucas received his from their uncle John. Kidney disease was discovered in Roma when she was almost five, and in Lucas at
just 18 months. But, today, because of their transplants, the siblings are normal, active children. They are enjoying their childhood along with their middle brother, Marcos, 7, who shows no signs of the disease.
The chance for a young woman to breathe easy.
After Bobbie Wilson underwent a successful double-lung transplant, she would still try to adjust an oxygen tube or check for the tank that had been trailing her for more than a year.
But then Bobbie's health began to deteriorate. She became easily winded. She got lung infections. She was hospitalized more often. By age 30, she was relying on supplemental oxygen, and her disease began to take its toll.
"I had to quit working," she says. "I didn't go out much. I once left a wedding reception because I'd run out of oxygen and couldn't breathe."
Bobbie's doctors recommended that she get her nam
e on a transplant list. And, because she was a Walmart employee and 100 percent of her transplant and related expenses were covered at Mayo Clinic, Bobbie soon turned to specialists in Rochester, Minn., for help.
At Mayo Clinic, doctors performed an eight-hour double-lung transplant. And the results of that surgery still surprise her. "When I did my lung capacity tests for the first time, I cried because it was so effortless," she says.
After 11 days in the hospital, Bobbie's health care team coordinated her recovery in Rochester for the next three months and then continued to provide support as she went home to her family.
Bobbie is now back to work and actively enjoying life again. And she's grateful for the care and the generous gift that saved her life. Without them, "I probably wouldn't be here," she says. "Being sick has taught me a lot about being appreciative."
The chance for an athlete to ride again.
As a marathon runner and long-distance cyclist, Dan Olson thought his athletic lifestyle ensured a healthy body. But in 2002, at age 38, Dan was diagnosed with cardiomyopathy, a condition that weakens and enlarges the heart muscle.
"I couldn't believe it," he says. "I kept thinking, 'I'm in good shape. It can't really be that bad.' "
In fact, his condition was so serious that Dan was airlifted from a Wisconsin hospital to Mayo Clinic, where his doctors told him that his heart had been damaged beyond repair. Dan would need a heart transplant.
Once he was stabilized, Dan's name was added to the transplant list. Just two weeks later, he received the call. A 15-year-old girl had died in a car accident. And in the midst of their tragedy, the family made the generous decision to donate their daughter's organs. In doing so, they saved Dan's life.
"I think of my donor every day," says Dan. "And I want to show her family all that their gift has allowed me to do."
For Dan, that meant getting well and resuming an active life. It meant running marathons again and biking across the country. It meant restoring an old farmhouse and returning to his long-held job in a local factory. But it also meant honoring his donor and her family by talking about organ donation.
"I want people to know that you can live your normal life after transplant," he says. "I hope that by doing the things I do, I can give hope to people waiting for transplants, and also encourage people to consider organ donation. It's hard to think about being in a position to donate your organs or your loved one's organs. But if you're ever in that position, it's nice to know that something good can come out of it.
The chance for a little girl to grow up.
Macie, an exhuberant and inquisitive child of two years of age, keeps her parents, grandparents and even great-grandparents busy. However, the family doesn’t mind, because at four months old Macie was just struggling to stay alive. After what seemed a normal pregnancy, Macie was born prematurely and with a severe case of cardiomyopathy (an inflammation of the heart that interferes with its ability to pump blood). Although she was allowed to go home after her birth, she continued to have significant medical problems and went into cardiac arrest twice. It was just after her second cardiac arrest that Macie, while in the ICU, had a donor heart become available.
Macie received a heart transplant at just four months old and came through the operation well enough to return home quickly. The family saw an immediate change in Macie, both in her eating abilities and her new energy. Although she will always take anti-rejection medications, she will be able to do all the things other children do, including sports. “Macie is catching up from all the time she was in the hospital and is developing very well” says her mom, Michelle. “I can’t stress enough the importance of organ and tissue donation. I’d ask people to give organ donation a chance. It saved Macie’s life.”
Brain Death and Organ Donation - Some Basic Facts:
Brain death is the cessation of all brain activity. Brain death is not a coma, even patients in a deep coma will still show some brain activity. Brain death appears dark on scans, there is no brain activity to light up the screen, there is no life present.
In the United States, principles of making a diagnosis of brain death are guided by the Uniform Determination of Death Act. To read the act in full, go here:
A summary of the act can also be found here:
There is no need for a Neurologist to lie. In the US, as in most countries, the declaration of brain death is made independent of organ donation. Neither the organ procurement team, nor any of the medical personnel who may assist with the recovery of organs, are involved in determining brain death.
As recently as 2010 the criteria for determing brain death was revised and updated, to reflect advances in medicine. This isn't an antiquated procedure stuck back in 1968, as has been claimed.
The criteria for determining brain death is stringent, and may involve not only Neurosurgeons or Neuroligists, but members of the Respiratory Therapy team as well. The clinical examination to determine brain death may include physical tests to check for the absence of brain death reflexes, apnea tests to check for spontaneous respiration or respiratory efforts, and an in-depth and highly sensitive electroencephalograph to record the absence of brain activity. Other rests that may be performed include Conventional angiography: Contrast injected under pressure into the aortic arch, and Nuclear flow study: scintigraphy using Technetium 99m hexamethyl propylene amine oxime.
To read the Massachusets General's criteria for determination of brain death, follow this link:
(image courtesy of http://health.peculiaris.net)
