April is National Donate Life Month

The tragic death of Natasha Richardson put a very public face on the issue of organ donation. April is National Donate Life Month in the United States, so for the month of April, I’ll be writing about organ donation and transplantation from differing points of view. I have some people who have received organs, those who have donated organs, those who are waiting for organs, and those who take part in this miraculous surgery and the care afterwards (Organ donation after brain death ) .

Many years ago, before I even had children, I had a coworker who was waiting for a liver transplant. She was very tiny, less than five feet tall, so she knew she was waiting for a child’s liver. Psychologically, that was very, very hard for her. As luck would have it, since a liver wasn’t becoming available, she became one of the first in Quebec to have a partial transplant – she received part of a liver from an adult, rather than a whole one.

I’ve lost contact with her, but I know that she looked great and felt much, much better after the transplant. She was able to get out and enjoy life again. I hope she’s still doing well.

Transplantation touches us all, whether we know it or not. The decisions we make while we’re alive may affect many lives after we’re gone.

Stay tuned for a month of transplant stories.

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Image: iStock