Organ Donation: Let’s Talk About Dying

Organ donation is hardly a light topic for a dinner table chat but it’s one of the most important conversations you can have with your family. Sadly, most people don’t realise that until it’s too late. Here’s why you should take two minutes today to sign up for organ donation and tell your loved ones about your choice.

Taking an organ

Talking about organ donation inevitably brings up things we would all rather not think about. Apart from confronting our own mortality, it quickly leads to contemplating the deaths of parents, siblings and friends.

Signing up as an organ donor is definitely the right thing to do but if you ever have doubts, just think of your family. Most of us would do anything to save the life of a loved one but if they ever need an organ you will be left watching and waiting for a kind-hearted stranger to die, so that the pain and loss is restricted to the donor’s family.

The mother of Freddie, who received a liver in 2015, has shared her story explaining that “the worst of the diagnosis was, and still is, I can’t make Freddie better… The wait for the transplant was absolute torture. Until you are a family waiting for a donor you can never understand the importance of signing the organ donation register.”

 

Giving an organ

The thought of dying is scary but that is no reason to avoid a decision on organ donation. It is no different from thinking about how you’d like to be buried or who will delete your internet history. They are all important events that you won’t be around to witness.

Some people worry that doctors won’t try hard to save them if they are organ donors. Frankly that idea is pretty offensive. Doctors don’t play God – their duty is to their patient alone so you will come first until your final breath.

Not everyone who signs up ends up as a donor. In the last year 32% of people who died while registered as donors did not give organs because donation can only happen in certain circumstances. Most donors suffer brain death meaning they have permanently lost the ability to breathe and be conscious. A machine may keep their heart and lungs going but there’s no possibility they’ll ever wake up. The idea of “pulling the plug” to cause someone’s death in this situation doesn’t hold true – they’re already gone.

Brain death isn’t subjective but a clinically measured condition carried out by two senior doctors, neither of whom can be involved in the transplant team. Some 41% of last year’s deceased donors suffered cardiac death. The heart irreversibly stopped beating and the person either could not or should not have been resuscitated.

There’s also the chance to be a living donor, something many are willing to do when their loved one’s lives are at stake. While alive you can donate a kidney, a piece of liver, some bone or a placenta. Over the last year 950 incredible people chose to become living donors.

Anyone with HIV (unless donating to someone with HIV), Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease or cancer that has spread in the last 12 months cannot donate.

It’s Your Turn

Reading all this makes no difference if you don’t do something about it. Writing this article prompted me to open my family Whatsapp chat and tell them I was an organ donor. It took all of nine seconds and led my relatives to share their own decisions. In just five minutes my entire family was aware of each other’s wishes and were better equipped to deal with such a scenario. I didn’t agree with everyone’s choice – and I will do all I can to make them reconsider – but I’m thankful that I now know what they want and I don’t have to make any decisions for them.

This conversation is so important. Some countries allow families to overturn a registered donor’s desire if they disagree with it. Others live the rest of their lives never knowing if they made the right decision, simply because they never asked. Taking this decision out of your grieving family’s hands is the kindest thing you can do. No one should be forced to make that call.

Londoner Lloyd Dalton-Brown knew his sister Lucy wanted to donate her organs. When she was hit by a truck there was no hesitation or decision on his part. Lloyd says that donation “is something positive for your loved ones to hold on to, which I personally do after my sister donated.” Lucy Dalton-Brown’s selflessness saved five people.

Give and Get

It’s time to think about what donation really means for you and your loved ones. Giving organs is a demanding moral duty but it’s also a privilege. Someone is allowing you to live on inside them long after the rest of you is gone. Donation is a far better fate than being turned to ash or buried in a box. Sure it’s strange, unsettling and sad but it’s also a new beginning for your organs and let’s face it – after years of heartbreak, alcohol, pollution and poor eating, we owe them that much.

No more excuses – register now to become an organ donor and talk to your family about your choice.

by Jo Davey

The post Organ Donation: Let’s Talk About Dying appeared first on Felix Magazine.