playin4beer said:
Our circle of friends has a non-drinker.. Not a drinker that quit.. just never drank when he was younger so he figured it didn't make sense to start now..
We routinely discuss which one of us gets his liver when he bites it..
But, yes.. I am an organ donor, I'm on the "Be the Match" bone marrow registry and I donate blood when I'm not too hungover to do so...
Been a donor since I got my DL. Work pretty closely with Donor Services in the hospital. My first month taking call in the O.R. I got called in to do a Neuro case of a guy that was only 34 that was in a motorcycle accident. Team of surgeons worked for hours, doing everything they could to save him, while me and an anesthesiologist poured blood into him and gave him every medication we could to keep his heart pumping and brain perfusing. He couldn't be saved. I can still picture his wife and two daughters, when they broke the news to them.
He was a donor, and the Donor Services Harvest Team flew in to our little Podunk Operating Room to harvest his organs. I hung out to help them coordinate everything they needed. I watched them go through the whole process of harvesting kidneys and liver, pancreas and lungs, eyes and retinas and lenses, just about everything. Even to the people that do this a couple times a week, there was a solemnity, a sense of something sacred happening in there. I was a wreck by the end of that night.
A couple days later, one of the techs that was on the Harvest Team sent me an email. Just said, "thought you'd like to know" and had a list of 21 people whose lives were saved, or made significantly better because of that one guy being a donor. No names, just "kidney- 52 y/o male."
and thanks, playin4beer, for being a donor and bringing up Be the Match. The bone marrow donor registry doesn't get a lot of publicity, but it's a very worthy cause. My son needed a bone marrow transplant last year, and in the whole database, there were only two suitable matches. Both in Europe. Luckily, one awesome 23 year-old kid in the UK was a match, and agreed to be my son's donor. I don't know the entire process that you have to go through to donate, but have heard it's not painful or too time consuming. But it definitely takes a special person to take time out of their own lives and make whatever arrangements have to be made.
The rules are weird about donating; we aren't allowed to know our donor's name for at least 2 years after transplant. (It's only 1 year, I think, in the States) and only if he consents to sharing his identity. But that guy, whether he knows it or not, is sitting on an "I drink free beer for the rest of my life" card, and I really hope we get to meet him and thank him in person for what he did.
