Category: organ donor
Lauren’s Donor, blogging 101
Identify Your Audience
I guess my audience is you if you are reading this. I would like to send a heart-felt “thank you”for following my blog.
Today’s post is about organ donor’s and their families. One in particular, Lauren’s heart donor.
When Lauren was placed on the heart transplant list, I knew that someone had to die for my daughter to live. It took me a long time to comprehend this thought. As days turned into weeks, than months of living in the hospital waiting, I had a lot of talks with the Dear Lord. My daughter was getting sicker and sicker, and all I kept thinking was maybe today. Now, here I am, praying Lauren would receive a heart, in the back of my mind out of all the deaths every day, please be Lauren’s match.
Lauren’s donor
To this date we still have no idea who Lauren’s donor was. The picture above, I believe could be her. The only thing the doctors would tell us was “if you just had a baby, the baby would be wearing pink”. So we know it was a female.
To all the families out there that have lost a loved one, and they were an organ donor. I am so, so sorry for your loss. Please take a little comfort in knowing that they saved others. Also with respect, as a mother of a child who is an organ recipient we know it is your choice to be known to the other family.
This song is dedicated to all the organ donors
With much Love Lynne
Ask yourself this question, do you know all the facts about becoming an organ donor
Ask yourself this question, do you know all the facts about becoming an organ donor
I was reading a couple of articles this morning, and the word racism kept coming up. I am not sure what in the world is happening now, come on it is 2015. One article that really upset me was Principal Verenice Guiterrez who runs the Harvey Scott School (K-8) in Portland, Oregon made an announcement that peanut butter and jelly sandwiches are racist!!!!! She was asked WHY??? comment, “improves education for students of color” She noted that some student haven’t eaten bread in their culture. Instead, they eat pitas, tortas, and other bread substitutes. She stated “that serving a PB&J is a brazen splay of white privilege.
OK, NOW I HAVE HEARD OF EVERYTHING.
The above is just a small version of all the racial controversy that is going on in the world.
Food for thought here, no pun intended, did you know that if you were in need of an organ donation, I need to say this loud
RACE IS NOT A FACTOR
Would you refuse an organ because of the donor’s race?
When you are placed on the organ donor list, they are looking for matches for your blood type, and so on. Not what color you are.
Please read the following facts….educate yourself on becoming a donor.
Learn The Facts
These facts may help you better understand organ, eye, and tissue donation:
Fact: Anyone, regardless of age or medical history, can sign up to be a donor. The transplant team will determine at an individual’s time of death whether donation is possible.
Fact: Most major religions in the United States support organ donation and consider donation as the final act of love and generosity toward others.
Fact: If you are sick or injured and admitted to a hospital, the number one priority is to save your life.
Fact: When matching donor organs to recipients, the computerized matching system considers issues such as the severity of illness, blood type, time spent waiting, other important medical information, and geographic location. The recipient’s financial or celebrity status or race does not figure in.
Fact: An open casket funeral is usually possible for organ, eye, and tissue donors. Through the entire donation process, the body is treated with care, respect, and dignity.
Fact: There is no cost to donors or their families for organ or tissue donation.
Fact: Every state provides access to a donor registry where its residents can indicate their donation decision.
Fact: Federal law prohibits buying and selling organs in the U.S. Violators are punishable by prison sentences and fines.
Fact: People can recover from comas, but not brain death. Coma and brain death are not the same. Brain death is final.
I hope this helped
Lynne
Why donate??? Pass this website… blogging 101
This is the third assignment for blogging 101.
WHY DONATE?????
Because you may save up to 8 lives through organ donation and enhance many others through tissue donation.
Last year alone, organ donors made more than 28,000 transplants possible. Another one million people received cornea and other tissue transplants that helped them recover from trauma, bone damage, spinal injuries, burns, hearing impairment and vision loss.
Unfortunately, thousands die every year waiting for a donor organ that never comes. .
You have the power to change that
Below is a picture of my son Michael and my daughter Lauren at the beach last summer. If it wasn’t for an organ donor, I wouldn’t have this picture. Because some special person made a decision to sign up to become an organ donor, I have this picture.
My thoughts are, I genuinely hope if you are reading this, you never find yourself or a family member in the position of needing an organ, to finally make the decision to sign up.
All I can say is consider it.
If you could pass this website to your friends, and they pass it on to their friends and families, with more awareness maybe together we could save just one life.
Thank you – Lynne
Joey Gase NASCAR Nationwide Series Driver
Please listen to his story….
BIRMINGHAM, Alabama – Mary Jo Gase was a big fan of her son, NASCAR Nationwide Series driver Joey Gase.
“I was told she would yell up in the grandstands, ‘Go, Joey, Go!'” he recounted during a visit to Children’s of Alabama hospital today. “Everyone around her would tell her, ‘Mary, Joey can’t hear you. He’s in the race car right now. It’s a little loud.’ She would say, ‘I don’t care. That’s my boy out there.'”
Joey Gase Sees Progress
Joey Gase is a youthful looking 21-year-old. He is so youthful, in fact, that many questioned whether he has a license to drive on city streets. But the native Iowan says he can see improvement in himself and his team as Talladega weekend approaches in the Nationwide Series. (Solomon Crenshaw Jr./screnshawjr@al.com)
Nowadays, the younger Gase hears his mom in his mind, and in his heart. Mary Jo Gase died suddenly of a brain aneurysm in April 2011. That’s what made his visit today to transplant patients at Children’s particularly personal for him.
“I know how hard I’m sure it is for them,” he said. “I’ve never been quite on this side before, how hard it is for them waiting for one of their organs and also, if they have received one, hoping that it’s going to be a successful one.”
Gase will drive the No. 52 Donate Life Chevy in Saturday’s Aaron’s 312 Nationwide Series race at Talladega Superspeedway. On the lid of the car’s trunk will a picture of Savannah Sides, a 5-year-old who insisted on registering to be an organ donor exactly one month before she was killed in a car accident.
Since he was 18 and his mother was unmarried at the time, the young race car driver had a major role in the decision to donate his mother’s organs.
“We made the call as a family but I was the one who had to sign all the paperwork,” he said, acknowledging a bit of weight on his shoulders. “But I knew it’s what my mom would have wanted. Later we found out that was absolutely 100 percent for sure what she wanted when we found her driver’s license and she was already a registered donor.”
Gase family.jpeg
Joey Gase poses for a family picture with his mother Mary Jo and sister Ashley. (Submitted photo)
Gase said his mother was able to improve the lives of 66 people.
“She was able to donate almost everything,” he said. “Her heart valves and her lungs went to research, and her corneas and skin tissue. Me, my sister have been fortunate enough to be able to meet one of my mom’s recipients who received one of her kidneys.”
That meeting really meant something to the race driver.
“When we met him, it made it that much more special to know that my mom is still living on through him,” he said. “If it wasn’t for her, most likely he wouldn’t be here today.”
Update on Lauren’s letter to her donor.
We have been asked numerous times if we have heard from the donor family. Well, to this date we haven’t. We received a letter from UNOS stating that they received Lauren’s letter. They said it was beautifully written and they sent it to the family. Now it is up to the family if they wish to be known.
Lauren and I realize it is probably a very hard decision for them, and we understand it may take them awhile to want to reach out or not.If they don’t, we will respect their decision.
Take a second a listen to this song, when we listen to it, it is for a wonderful person who decided to be an organ donor that saved Lauren’s life.
Are you an organ donor??????
organ donation
Image result for organ donationwvxu.org
Organ donation is the process of giving an organ or a part of an organ for the purpose of transplantation into another person. In order for a person to become an organ donor, blood and oxygen must flow through the organs until the time of recovery to ensure viability.
Organ Donation | Donate Life America
donatelife.net/organ-donation/Donate Life America
Why donate??? Pass this website on…….
WHY DONATE?????
Because you may save up to 8 lives through organ donation and enhance many others through tissue donation.
Last year alone, organ donors made more than 28,000 transplants possible. Another one million people received cornea and other tissue transplants that helped them recover from trauma, bone damage, spinal injuries, burns, hearing impairment and vision loss.
Unfortunately, thousands die every year waiting for a donor organ that never comes. .
You have the power to change that
Below is a picture of my son Michael and my daughter Lauren at the beach last summer. If it wasn’t for an organ donor, I wouldn’t have this picture. Because some special person made a decision to sign up to become an organ donor, I have this picture.
My thoughts are, I genuinely hope if you are reading this, you never find yourself or a family member in the position of needing an organ, to finally make the decision to sign up.
All I can say is consider it.
If you could pass this website to your friends, and they pass it on to their friends and families, with more awareness maybe together we could save just one life.
Thank you – Lynne
new heart = new beginnings 