On Organ Transplants

What need does a person who can no longer live, whose brain function is gone, have for his or her vital organs? Why would a family choose to bury those organs when they can save lives? In Europe, I'm told, you are on the organ transplant list of donors unless you officially say you aren't. In the U.S., it's the opposite way around -- meaning that at the tragic end of a loved one's life, a family must be confronted by some authority, their grief interrupted, who will ask them about donating the dead person's organs (unless, of course, that person already put him/herself on the donor list).

My son had a heart transplant. He was on the waiting list for a new heart for over five years. One of his "problems" was that he had type O blood, which meant O hearts could go to people who did not have type O blood, therefore putting people below him ahead of him if their conditions were worse than his as they all waited. And waited.

He almost died on the list. His blood pressure was 80/40 by the time of transplant. He had had three pacemaker or pacemaker-defibrillators installed (one of which was recalled by the manufacturer while attached to his heart). He would stoop down in front of his refrigerator to look at the bottom shelves and not have the energy to straighten back up. One doctor told him that he could simply fade away while waiting for a red light and die behind the steering wheel.

If more organs had been available, my son would not have had to confront those dire straits. The only way he had a future was with a new heart, but new hearts were few and often too far away to do him any good. Hopefully they did someone else good.

When my son received his new heart, it arrived by helicopter. While he was in surgery in the bowels of the hospital, away from us, when all we had of him were our cruel imaginations, we saw his new heart arrive as if powered by the wings of angels, the helicopter's lights cutting the night sky with a protective aura. As Rosanne Cash has sung, "God is in the roses -- the petals and the thorns...".

Why wouldn't more people actively sign on as organ donors? Anything could happen at any time, today, tomorrow, or the next day. Give life. Please.