When Tonya Gomez learned that she had three hours to make it to the hospital for a life-saving surgery, she could barely muster the energy to pack an overnight bag. Her battle with cystic fibrosis had left her lungs scarred, infected, and performing at only 19 percent. Her body’s energy raced through calories just to keep her alive, withering her frame to 88 pounds. She couldn’t remember when she had last showered.
That was a decade ago. Today, she’s a mother, a dietician, and an organ-donation activist who tells her double lung transplant story to raise awareness about the importance of voluntary organ donation. According to a 2013 report from the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, every day about 21 people like Tonya die while waiting for a life-saving transplant. If more Americans agreed to become organ donors, more people like Tonya would be alive today.
The donor registration process is simple: Sign up with your state’s Organ Donor Registry at organdonor.gov or select ‘yes’ to organ donation when applying for a driver’s license at the DMV. Donate Life America, a non-profit coalition committed to educating the public about organ donation, reported that there were 14,257 organ donors resulting in 28,953 organ transplants in 2013. Yet the need is even greater. More than 123,000 people currently need lifesaving organ transplants.
Being a registered organ donor means that when someone dies, medical professionals harvest his organs and use them as transplants to save or drastically improve the lives of as many as 50 people. Contrary to popular belief, people who die and donate their organs can still have open caskets at their funerals. Their families don’t have to pay any money for the organ donation process. Age doesn’t affect donation eligibility, except for minors who need parental permission. And all major religions, including Islam, Judaism, most Protestant denominations, and Roman Catholicism agree about the positive and even spiritual value of organ donation.
In addition, when injured people arrive at a hospital for medical treatment, doctors focus on saving their lives. Most of the time, physicians don’t even know whether or not patients are organ donors until after they’ve been declared dead. And registered donors are actually given more tests to determine that they’re truly dead than non-organ donors.
“I’ve been in the operating room and seen an organ recovery. It’s a careful, respectful procedure,” said Kara Steele, director of community services for Life Connection of Ohio. “It’s our job to fix this national health crisis. [It’s] something that people aren’t comfortable thinking about because it has to do with death. It was hard for my dad to think about when he received a liver transplant in 1997… I just wish everyone could see the thousands of people who are here because of the amazing generosity of organ donors.”
While organ donation can be an emotional hardship for families grieving over the loss of a loved one, dozens of support groups connect families of donors with transplant recipients. For example, Life Connection sponsors the Transplant Games, a biennial event that unites thousands of people who have been affected by organ donation to compete in Olympic-style games. Many of them form lasting friendships that would not have been otherwise possible.
Registering to be an organ donor sounds scary because dying sounds scary. Having a doctor remove parts of a body that otherwise will deteriorate in the ground sounds scary. But at the end of the day, it’s incredibly inspiring to meet any one of the thousands of participants in the Transplant Games who get to live for another five, 20, or 50 years because of the generosity of a donor — and that joy trumps the scary. The parents of a 9-year-old boy named Adam made the chilling decision to let their son be an organ donor — and it saved Tonya’s life.
“Without him, I wouldn’t be here. I’m living a life that I wouldn’t be able to. I would have died,” Tonya said, tears trickling down her cheeks. “I want people to be aware that we grieve his loss but know he’s also a hero… Take this information and make an educated decision. You can save a life — you don’t need your organs when you’re gone.”
