It’s National Organ Donation Week here in Canada. I had a post on the topic half written before I realized I was repeating myself nearly verbatim from last year. (Those of you who know me well are of course shocked and scandalized to think I would repeat a story I have told once or twice or thrice before.)
So, I’ll wait here a minute while you go read that post from last year, and then you come on back and we’ll talk some more. Go on, really – I just re-read it myself and it’s a pretty good post. It’s about my dad, and his liver transplant in 2001, when I was about five months pregnant with Tristan. And if you’ve got a little bit of extra time, read this wrenching story of a five-year-old girl in Illinois named Annika who has endured two liver transplants, and will probably need a third.
In case you’re in a hurry and you only pretended to click on the link, here’s the important bits.
All you have to do is sign an organ donor card (here’s the Canadian and American versions for you) and tell your family what you want. Yes, it can be that simple. If you want to do more, and you’re in the Ottawa area, join the living green ribbon campaign on Wednesday on Parliament Hill. I hope to be there.
Last night, my folks invited us over for dinner. The boys had run off downstairs, and I asked my dad if I could talk about his transplant on my blog. We sat and talked for the better part of an hour about the chronology – was it 1995 or 1996 that he started getting really sick? – and the details. It seems like another lifetime, the bad times when my dad was sick.
We talked about the false alarms. He had been on the list for a liver transplant for a year or so when the first call came. They waited for hours, my mother and father, having already been admitted to the hospital but then left to wait as the hours ticked by. They were told that the donor had hepatitis C, like my dad, but they had to wait to find out whether the liver would be too damaged by the disease to transplant. After hours of waiting and anticipation, they were told to go home. But wait! As my dad got dressed again and prepared to leave the hospital, they were stopped and told to wait yet again. They weren’t sure yet – maybe the liver was still good. For three more hours they waited alone in the hospital room before word finally reached them that the liver was not viable.
The second time they got a call, they were told my dad was the back-up recipient and would receive the liver only if the intended recipient couldn’t make it in from Thunder Bay in time. This time, they didn’t even admit him to the hospital. The recipient made it on time, and my parents went home, again, to wait.
We discussed last night, from the safe distance of four and a half years and 600 km, how the liver disease was horrible to endure, how the waiting and the not knowing were agonizing, but most of all how the hope was crushing. In his case, the fourth time was the charm. The fourth call came, and the liver was healthy, and the transplant was done. When they removed my dad’s liver, they found it riddled with cancer. It had been a ticking time bomb of cancerous cells.
Last night, after a reflective discussion about the days of my father’s sickness and transplant, I listened to Simon’s belly laugh as Papa Lou played with him. I watched my father’s eyes shine as he laughed right back at Simon’s antics. It was a moment, a perfect moment, the joy of my father and my son loving each other, and it was a gift. A gift from a stranger we will never know.
Imagine if it were your father, your wife, your son or daughter, your friend. Imagine watching them waste away, knowing that a call could come at any moment to rescue them, with the grace of God and a surgical team, from death itself. And imagine how you would feel listening for a call that does not come.
Discuss organ donation with your family. Sign a donor card. Give the gift of life.
Thanks for such eloquent words on an important subject. Organ donation in my community is the subject of a lot of debate, but I signed on as soon as I got my driver’s license to try to lead by example. (If you ever think you or someone you love might need it, flip around and do it for someone else…)
Mine has been signed for years and my family knows exactly how I feel. You putting the word out there again…it’s a good thing.
mine is always signed
thanks for spreading the word on this important issue
I love your Dad’s story. Thanks for sharing it with us again to remind us to sign those Donor cards.
I signed mine last time I renewed my license. Such a great public service you’re doing – thanks for that.
We always sign ours, and now sign on behalf of our children. This is such a great post Dani, beautiful.
Funny we were discussing this on the weekend with my in laws. As i have mentioned before my BIL had kidney disease and almost died before finding out his kidneys had shut down. He needed a transplant ASAP, First time he got it from my DH and it lasted about 8 yrs before it sadly was rejected from the wrong use of certian drugs and he got another from an Organ donor. I have signed my card and have had it sign for the last 20 years. It is so important. My BIL would not be here to spoil his neices and nephews the way he does and that would be a great lose.
A lady we know has just recieved a kidney from her brother that is not quite a match. BOY have things changed they can do that now where when my BIL got his it had to be a perfect match.
Hey, I didn’t know you were the child of a transplant recipient. So am I–heretitary kidney failure is the bane of our family.