The gift of life

We had an intriguing case at the hospital this week. The way I understand, a woman in her 50's came into the ER having a heart attack. They were able to revive her and she was taken to critical care. After a day or so, it was determined she was brain dead - apparently her heart had stopped long enough that blood and oxygen were no longer flowing to her brain.

I was working evening shift when the pharmacist mentioned this lady passed away. Soon after, orders were coming through on the same patient, and the pharmacist realized they were keeping the patient alive so that her organs could be donated to Gift of Life. I made a few IV drips for her, and left soon after. Throughout the night more IV's were sent and she was scheduled to go to the OR the next day. When I came to work, we were sending drugs to the OR to be used during the organ recovery. This was so fascinating to me... I wonder what I'd have to do to watch a case like this! Gift of Life has their own team to organize and make all the arrangements, as well as harvesting the organs.

In this case, I don't know the details of what organs were donated.

What a beautiful way to live on after your body is dead! Although I've never been in a situation where I had to make this kind of decision, it seems it would take away some of the sting of death to know your loved one is giving someone else's loved one another chance at life.

I've heard some people say they don't want to be an organ donor because if they're in a critical condition, the doctors won't try to save them. This is a myth/conspiracy theory. Here is what the Gift of Life website says about this:

Organ and tissue recovery takes place only after all efforts to save your life are exhausted and death is declared. The doctors working to save your life are entirely separate from the medical team involved in recovering organs and tissues.

Also, organ recipients are not selected based on who can pay the most. Again, from the Gift of Life website:

You cannot pay to change where you rank on the waiting list. Patients are matched based on a variety of factors that include medical urgency, blood/tissue type and size match with the donor, time on the waiting list, and proximity between the donor and the recipient.

More than 114,000 people nationwide are waiting for an organ or tissue transplant. Every ten minutes, another person is added to the list.

If you're not already an organ donor, please consider it! For more information or to read stories from donor recipients, visit the Gift of Life website here.