When a loved one has passed away, there is an opportunity regarded by the health of the individual, determined by a physician if the individual is able to donate the eight major organs, along with hands, corneas, and tissues from your bones. For an individual to be able to donate they have to sign up at their local department of motor vehicles when getting licensed, or you can register at the organ donor websites online. Only you can make this decision to give your organs away. Whenever you sign up to be an organ donor you are signing up to give someone else life.
Deciding whether to be one or not only affects you but other individuals. Therefore, it should not be a healthy individuals choice when they die whether their organs are used, it should be mandatory because they are jeopardizing others chance at fighting for life. Reasons being you can improve 50 or more lives, Organ donation can be a key component in helping families cope with the loss of a loved one, and if you’re a minority your organs can be in high demand because they can be harder to get. There are currently over 120,000 people in the United States awaiting an organ donation (Mayo Clinic Staff, 2017).
As of April 28, 2017, 8,365 life-saving transplants have taken place across the country. On average every ten minutes, a person is added to the transplant list, while roughly 22 people die every day awaiting this procedure (U. S. Department of Health and Human Services 2017). The predominant sagacious being why one should donate their organs is putting you in the position of someone that is need of your organs. Bluntly you have no reasons to keep your organs post life unless you ethnically it is against your morals. Deceased organ donors can donate kidneys, liver, lungs, their heart, pancreas, skin, bone marrow, and their intestines.
They can also donate their skin and corneas (Health Resources & Services Administration, 2017). The only donation that can be performed when the person donating is living is a kidney transplant (Ballmann, Charles 2015). When you decide to donate, it’s not a decision that you just made for yourself, it a decision that you possibly just made for 50 or more people and their families depending on the state of health that you passed in. You have no reason not to donate when you think about how many others you help, and there’s no possibility of hurting you in any way or form if you are already passed.
You can think of it as, part of you gets to continue on and live a journey to help someone else enjoy life. Matches for transplants can be hard to find because of all of the qualifications that they have to match up with blood type, diseases, making sure the immune system has enough T-cells, and even the donor and patient’s size (U. S. Department of Health and Human Services). By signing up even though you are unsure how you can help, you’re giving someone hope in the future, and who knows, maybe one day you might need one.
Anytime that a loved one passes on, the families and friends of that specific person can have terrible times grieving and coping with the fact that they are not going to be able to see that person anymore in this life. Within the first few months, the family should receive a letter telling the family members about what organs they were able to salvage (One Legacy, 2017). Most families want to know the recipient that their loved one’s organs go to, but it can take anywhere from months to several years depending on if they find a match and which organ it is.
However, if they are used within in time there will be an opportunity for the family to check on how that person is doing. They are allowed to ask medical physicians the overall health of that being and meet them if the recipient agrees to it, and a majority of the time they allow it Legacy, 2017). Meeting the recipient is a way to see a part of the person that was special to you in a whole different light. You now get to recognize this person as a miracle because of a simple act that takes a few minutes to sign up to donate. It’s as if part of their loved one gets to continue to live.
Matching Organs and recipients can be a hard thing to do. We talked previously about how physicals have to go through a process of checking the both people’s blood types, sizes to see if the organ will fit properly in the new body, testing for diseases, checking immune systems, medical history’s for both people, the list goes on and on. The supply and demand for organs are continuously growing (Frost, P. 2010). You may be wondering why it’s harder for minorities to come across organ matches, and for some matches, it doesn’t matter your ethnicity for things like your lungs, heart, kidneys, etc….
However for things like skin, bone marrow transplants it does matter (Shay C, 2010). When it comes to statistics for these types of transplant, you have a 97% chance of matching someone from your own ethnicity. Of course for typical donations like the heart and so on they want the genetic material, of course, to be similar, but matching gets even more critical when it comes to bone marrow. You have to find someone with almost no alterations from you genetic blueprint. All immu une system cells come from your bone marrow. So when you get a bone marrow transplant, the recipient is basically getting a new immune system.
Not only is there a chance for the organ to be rejected by the body, but now the body can reject the entire immune system and shut down matter (Shay C, 2010). For example, it’s harder for a mixed person (of any race) or someone just says Arabica in the United States to receive a bone marrow transplant, because a majority of the people donating are going to be Caucasian, African American, and Mexicans. So even though you may not think just because you are a certain ethnicity that no one needs your organs, because there is a very good chance that would be tested for a potential bone marrow match one day.
In conclusion organ donation in no way shape or form can harm you if you sign up to donate. It’s amazing that we have the technology in today’s society to take a healthy organ out of someone who has passed, meaning that his or her organs have stopping working. Then be able to take them out of that body into a new and functioning one and they start working again (Ramirez, 2006). People always say there’s a chance of the organ being rejected, and of course that is a possibility for the recipient, however, if you are in the state of organ failure, you’re body is completely going to shut down.
So what do you have to lose? When you think that 120,000 people are waiting to get transplants both young and old, and of this myriad over 20 are dying daily, it’s something to think about. Not signing up to became an organ donor can potentially being cheating multiple people out of a healthy normal life. Donating your organs should be seen as an act of love and kindness towards humanity and it can even be a part of your legacy that you leave behind. If we made organ donation mandatory, we lower that number 120,000, not by death but because they received the gift of life.
Cheryl is a girl who received a transplant (Health Talk, 2014), who received a kidney transplant who waited years to receive a kidney transplant. When she was asked to describe her life post surgery she said talking to the recipient’s family and other viewers that “it’s the best gift she could’ve ever possibly received and she will always be grateful. ” Donating your Organs is a life changing decision and hopefully, it’s that that hard to make. Now not only Liz, but thousands others can live normal lives all because of one decision that takes less than five minutes to sign up and online or at your local DMV.
