In America alone, one person dies nearly every hour waiting for a transplant – yet a single organ donor can save as many as eight lives.
We highly encourage everyone to register with the National Donor Registry if your state does not have one independently. It was through our experience that we were partnered with LifeLink which provides organ donation coordination services for Florida, Georgia and Puerto Rico. The links below will take you to the registry pages.
Noah’s Story
Noah was an organ donor. On his 16th birthday, I stood with him as he waited to get his driver’s license. The clerk asked him a simple question for the form, “….and did you want to be an organ donor?”
He looked at me somewhat confused, because most 16 year-olds aren’t thinking about their possible demise, particuarly on a much awaited event like the day they get their driver’s license. He asked me, “Do I want that?”
I said, “That’s up to you. It’s your body, but I do think it’s the right thing to do.”
He asked, “So basically, if something happens to me and that’s on my license, other people might live who are dying?”
I nodded.
Noah said, “Well that seems like a pretty easy choice!”
Fast forward five years, two months and 23 days – much to our horror that’s where we found ourselves. The post below is what I wrote as I sat by my son’s bedside counting down the hours till they took him to surgery. I believe they were the most heart wrenching, agonizing hours of my life.
How it went down
They called Noah’s death at 4:30pm EST on October 4th, 2017 after a series of exams to confirm beyond a shadow of a doubt that he was infact brain dead. Within minutes of the declaration one of his nurses gently asked if we knew his wishes regarding organ donation. I did. I was there. I knew exactly his feelings on the matter. Within two more hours we were sitting in front of a LifeLink coordinator having everything explained to us and signing Noah’s final paperwork.
The care coordinator told us it was normally 48 to 72 hours for everything to be completed. They begin searching the database for matching recipients immediately to facilitate as many matches as possible within the given window of healthy time. Two doctors who had thanked us for agreeing to organ donation (it wasn’t us, it was Noah – we were just honoring his wishes), had stated how vital it is for that window to be as short as possible. It’s not just about the recipients who are in a declining state of health whose lives may be down to hours, but it’s also about the viability of the organs themselves. Regardless of how healthy Noah was, when the organs are being sustained by machines, their health actually begins to decline. It’s optimum for the recipients to receive their transplants as quickly as possible so they have the best chance of survival.
Truth – it puts the family of the person donating into the position of having to say, “when.” When that person is being kept alive on life support, as bad as it looks, you still have that hope, that thought – “What if…” You know logically if the machines shut down that that’s it, but it doens’t stop the wishful thinking. We were told at noon, Thursday the 5th that they had found all the matches. The surgery would be within 12 to 14 hours so everything would be perfectly timed and coordinated between surgical teams and life flight helicopters.
It was like someone sucked all the oxygen from the room. It was real. This was really happening. Hours. It’s surreal when someone tells you, you have hours left with your child. It doesn’t matter if they’re one, ten, 15, 21, 35 or 50. Your child is just your child regardless of age. In that moment you just see their small features. The same ones that looked up at you at midnight feedings and from your lap during nap time and from across the field when they scored their first goal, or across the table during a birthday dinner. Little things that only a parent notices, they’re all still there. You ask yourself over and over again, “How is this possible, how is this real?”
But there it is – and the big white faced clock with black numbers and black lines and the red-colored second-hand is ticking off the moments you have left with them. The irony is that you’re the one who has to call the time. You, the signer, the administrator, the decision-maker, you have to tell the surgical team when you’re ready. If you prolong it, because you can’t bear it, you put the recipients at risk. Not just their risk of having to live with the organ failing them, but prolonging it means you’re jeopardizing the health of your loved-one’s organ so when the transplant happens, it could make it sketchy for the procedure, recovery time and longevity of the transplant itself.
I didn’t know this at the time. I thought it was just a scheduled time and that’s it and you have no call in the matter. Then the care coordinator at 9pm on the 5th, four-and-a-half hours from when they would take Noah to surgery came into the room and seeing me crying said, “If you need more time, if you’re not ready, we can postpone it some.”
This was an option?
It seemed like time froze. I recall everything about the room; who was in it, how it sounded, the lighting, the temperature, everything around me became so vivid. There was silence in the room as everyone stared at me. I so desperately wanted to say, “Yes, please wait,” but wait for what? Wait for a few more hours I could spend sitting with him? Holding his hand? Touching his face and his hair? Knowing the feel of his skin, the scar on his chin from a surgery when he was 10, his structure, his face, everything – would it change with a few hours?
Then I thought of them. Them. The people waiting for that transplant. Their families and friends who were waiting, knowing that health and hope were around the corner. That their futures were changed and no longer doomed. Their fear could be aleved and while my son, my beautiful son was gone and nothing could change that – those hours I still wanted to sit with him, could mean the difference between a successful surgery and an organ rejection for those recipients. The truth was, he was gone. The very fine man I knew, the boy I knew, my son – he was gone. I couldn’t change that. It was a fact. Yet for those recipients, his heart, his liver, his kidneys and his pancreas meant life. Life with their families and friends. He could still live, in some way, differently than I had ever thought before, but he was still doing what he always did – protecting others, making their lives better.
I honestly don’t know how many minutes passed between when the care coordinator told me they could push that window a bit further and when I actually responded. It felt like a lifetime. I could hear my own breathing and my heartbeat in my ears as I said, “No – ma’am – my son, MY son, the person I knew is already gone. I know where he is now. I can’t change that. It can’t be undone. But those people waiting, it does matter to them. Their lives are at stake the longer we wait. I already understand that. It’s fine. We’re okay. Do it as scheduled for them.”
Noah always put others first. Always. It was his way. He needed and wanted everyone around him to be safe, happy and protected. It was the final thing I could do to honor his wishes and the way he lived his life, bravely, boldly, selflessly and with love.
Every time I think of them, those recipients, I know it was the right decision. I do not know who they are and may never know. They may never know my son, all he stood for, what he believed in or the person who forever became part of them, but I will. I will pray for them always that their health continues, their families are strong and their love endures forever just as ours does.
Time is not guaranteed. Things happen, accidents occur, but this one thing takes just moments to do. Register. Become an organ donor. It is a brilliant piece of medical science that we’re capable of doing today. Taking a healthy, thriving organ from one person who for whatever reason, has passed away, and transplant into someone else that their life might continue. It’s beautiful and perfect and it truly does make the pain of acceptance of death more tolerable by helping someone else continue to live.
Register now.
Heather L Jeffries (Noah’s Mom)
