"I Will...Remain Alive" - A Story of Organ Donation

jeastridge, BSN, RN

National Donor Day - February 14

Let's remember the people who gave the gift of life to others.

"Our son, Adam, was declared brain dead on January 20, 1998. He had been riding back to college with some friends and he was sitting on someone's lap when the driver swerved to miss an animal, and the car rolled. Adam had a closed brain injury. They did everything they could."

Dave Lively, Adam's dad, shared the story with me, bringing back again the anguish our whole community felt when it happened. "But you know, even all these years later, Adam's spirit is with us through the people that still live with his organs.

I asked him how he first heard about organ donation during that difficult time. "After Adam was declared brain dead, we got a call from a nurse named Dwight. He asked me if we had ever considered organ donation. The question gave us pause because Adam had actually told us, about six weeks before the accident, that if anything ever happened to him, he wanted to be an organ donor. He was just that kind of guy-very giving. But his words also gave us a gift of peace-and it took a weight off of our shoulders-knowing that we were doing what he would have wanted."

"All total, 52 people benefitted from his gift. Ken got his heart. Ken had cardiomyopathy and his days were numbered. Now he lives on to see his children grow up and meet his grandchildren. Donna has his pancreas. Because of Adam, she can share birthday cake with her son. Two people got to be off of dialysis; others received long bones, skin, corneas, even ligaments."

I asked Dave what he wishes all nurses knew about organ donation. "It's such a hard time, but organ donation helps to make good come from it. Don't let brain death be the end. There are 120,000 people on the waiting list for organs and 22 people die every day because they don't get the transplant they need."

"The chaplain and the nurse from the local organ donation organization were the key professionals that we connected with during those days. They stayed with us and answered all our questions."

In 2016, 33,606 transplants were reported, representing an 8.5 percent increase over the 2015 total and an increase of 19.8 percent since 2012, according to the Organ Procurement and Transplantation Network (OPTN). This is a record high for the fourth year in a row. Many factors contribute to this but better publicity, public education and positive outlook from nurses and other medical professionals can certainly contribute to the public's increasingly favorable perspective of organ donation.

Also, in recent years clinicians have begun to accept donations from persons who have died of conditions that previously might have been an automatic decline such as drug intoxication, circulatory death, or even those who have some elevated risk for blood born disease. The oldest donor was in her 90's! As criteria for accepting donations change, nurses remain key players in the time surrounding death and organ harvesting. By providing a climate of gentle acceptance and supportive presence, we have the ability to help make the process of following a loved one's wishes a little bit easier.

While nurses can be supportive, it is important to wait to begin the conversation about donation when a trained professional arrives or calls the family. Even though we do not talk about organ donation directly, our body language and facial expressions do contribute to the overall climate of acceptance as families discuss the possibility of making this treasured gift of life.

In 1998, a law was passed that stipulated that only a professional trained through an Organ Procurement Organization (OPO) be allowed to discuss possible donation with the family of a patient who dies in a hospital facility. This law was passed in response to the astounding statistic that families approached by a trained professional agreed to donate 67% of the time as compared with those approached by another member of the medical team-9%.*

I asked Dave about how he and his wife were able to keep moving forward after Adam died. "We became spokespersons for organ donation. We accepted every chance we got to go out and speak, to educate and to help spread the word about what good donation can do."

As we wrapped up our conversation, he told me that at one local event, a county fair, he was passing out flyers with his son's picture on them. A girl looked at the flyer and said, "I knew Adam! I was in astronomy class with him. He was so nice to me. He made me feel good about myself." Dave sighed, "Yep, he was just that kind of a guy."

Adam's dad told me one last story. After his son's death, he and his wife received a letter from Adam's philosophy professor. In it, he quoted a prescient line from Adam's senior paper, "I still have a desire to believe that 'death' is, in fact, not a death. I will ultimately, somehow, remain alive."

References

* 63 Fed. Reg. 33,856, 33,860 (1998), citing Klieger J, Nelson K, Davis R, et al. Analysis of factors influencing organ donation consent rates. J Transplant Coord. 1994;4:132-4.

"I Will...Remain Alive" - A Story of Organ Donation

National Donor Day - February 14

References

About jeastridge, BSN, RN

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