It's Hard Enough To Find Organ Donors
I believe in organ donation. I don't know if anyone will actually be able to use any of my organs when I die, but I want medical professionals to have that option. With the exception of a very used liver and probably a bad heart, the rest is up for grabs. Hey, and I even have some extra fat to share. Despite massive efforts over the years by organizations, organ donation is still not done by the majority of people. I am not sure why, but it is the case. Now, the CDC wants to make it even more difficult for people to donate organs. They are proposing that if you have sex with more than one person in a year, that their organs should not be used. You have to be out of your mind. If you have sex with someone in January and a different person in November they are basically saying your organs are not good enough. Why? They think if you have sex with more than one person in a year that you are at risk for life threatening infections. Umm, has the CDC ever heard of this thing called a condom. It's latex, and I'm sure they have seen pictures. The CDC says it is to protect the people getting the donations. Yeah if you are on a waiting list for a liver and your doctor says you would have got one but it turns out the person had sex with two people last year so no liver transplant and now you are going to die, do you think that person is going to be happy?
This comment has been removed by the author.
ReplyDeleteWhat the hell? That makes no sense at all. I'd be willing to bet most people waiting for an organ would be willing to take that risk.
ReplyDeleteUmm, not to ask the obvious, but how in the fuck will the CDC know if you've had sex with more than one person in a year???
ReplyDeleteKLM, that's a good point - after all, except for living donors, you aren't exactly going to be in the position to describe your sexual exploits to them. And if it's a living donor, they should be able to test for infections first.
ReplyDeleteThat is insane. And, yeah, what KLM said - how will they know?
ReplyDeleteI would donate my organs, but I'm not sure how healthy they are. The doctors could try, I suppose. Or use them for science *L*
I'm an organ donor.
ReplyDeleteThe only thing I said no to was donating my skin cause it's kind of like my wrapper and if I don't have it I'll probably look quite the state in my casket.
I'm an organ donor as well. I worked in a heart transplant program at one point and was horrified by how many people refuse to donate relative's organs, even though they signed donor cards. My only limitation on donation is I don't want my whole body donated for medical students to work on - I just know they'd make fun of me :( .
ReplyDeletePSA: Remember to tell your family your wishes. Unless you have a living will, it doesn't make a whit of a difference if you have that little box checked on your driver's license - your next of kin will make the decision.
ReplyDeleteSue Ellen - they only take skin from your back, so your front would still be perfectly presentable. :)
ReplyDeleteGood to know. Here I am thinking I'd be all muscle and veins, leaking away, while my loved ones are trying to touch me.
ReplyDeleteI've never understood, other than religious reasons, for not donating organs that are no longer needed by the original body and can be used by someone else. I've told my children to donate whatever could be used, organ recipients or science, and cremate the rest.
ReplyDelete@SusanB -
ReplyDeletemedical schools now are moving to a teaching practice where they learn the patient's first name, family circumstances, details of their life, etc., in order to create more of a bond with the donor, and to honor the fact that this was a person with a life.
I'm with mikey: Take what you want and burn the rest. And if it was a choice between death or a transplant of a maybe diseased organ, I think I'd take the chance.
ReplyDeleteI don't understand why people don't donate either. I made it very clear to my husband to donate everything you can and then plastinate the rest. I want to be a piece of art. If I couldn't make it as an actor in this life I'll be damn sure I'm on stage afterwards.
ReplyDeleteOver-regulation at its most insane.
ReplyDeleteI'm donating whatever can be used. @MsSnarky, that's good, because @SusanB is right--students DO, or DID, make fun of the cadavers. I went to a gross anatomy class as an undergrad, and could not believe what those med students were doing with the bodies, stabbing them, hoisting a head on a spike, all trying to be, um, funny. Yeah.
I'm not donating anything to the medical establishment. Why should I give them something they charge others for? I'll be happy to give up something for free if the hospital and doctors, etc. also want to give their time and services for free. Medical costs are insane. I'm averaging about 60-70% of the time the doctors either do nothing, hurt me or feel me up. F-them all! They're not making a dime off me or my organs.
ReplyDeleteI should probably leave my brain to science so they can figure out what kind of obvious disorder I have!
My mom donated her entire body to medicine. They were allowed to harvest what organs they could (not much, I imagine, since she was an 82 year old diabetic with cancer) but then the rest went to the university's medical school to be used in cadaver training.
ReplyDeleteAfter they finish with it, they cremated it. I was given the option to receive the ashes, but chose to have them interred in their memorial garden instead.
This raised some odd feelings in me, like "where is Mom now?", but all in all I think it was a good thing. This last New Year's Eve I was in the hospital and during the long boring night of lying in bed talking to the nurses who came to my room to watch the fireworks over the ocean, I mentioned my mom's donation. They were thrilled, impressed, and thankful, and told me they were going to take extra good care of me, and they did.
@figgy - I kind of understand why the medical students do some of that - the first time a patient died with me I was very uneasy because other than witnessing an autopsy as part of my training, I had never seen a dead body. I know I made a few inappropriate jokes to my co-workers but it wasn't out of disrespect, it was out of uneasiness. But I have heard similar stories about medical students and just don't want that for myself. I might be interested in the body farm that man (I can't remember his name) where they take bodies and leave them in the elements to see how they decompose in different situations (to help solve crimes). I had read about that program a few years ago and it sounds worthwhile.
ReplyDeleteI meant to say - the man in the Casey Anthony trial who discussed decomposition.
ReplyDeleteHave you guys heard that the new 3D-printing technology might become useful in creating new organs? http://www.ted.com/talks/anthony_atala_printing_a_human_kidney.html
ReplyDeleteI think the primary fear keeping people from being donors is that hospitals push to have a person removed from life support to harvest the organs. It doesn't help when they've had family and/or friends who've actually experienced this with another family member two days into a coma.
ReplyDeleteAren't gay men still not allowed to donate blood? Shit is backwards.
ReplyDeleteI'm an organ donor and said they could take everything except my corneas. I don't know why, but the idea of my eyes really freaked me out.
I seriously cannot get away from kidneys. disease, donation, etc =\
ReplyDeleteI'm sorry, I'm just burned because my aunt was a 5 antigen match, but UPenn said no to the transplant because she's genetically predisposed to diabetes.
I understand that I'd want the healthiest kidney possible. I also hate dialysis. I'm having a bad treatment day, on top of this. Oh, but yeah, what really upsets me is Penn knew about this for a month and didn't tell her.
I'd say something about dialysis on facebook, and she'd comment saying something about "We've got it covered" (I hardly really say anything about dialysis, but when I was doing in-center for a bit, I took pictures, and made a video thats up on my blog) But people would be like OMG where do I get tested, and my aunts like "I'm a match, don't worry about it" and that time is all like, in vain (or in vein haaaa yay sense of humor)
all these corporations that are government funded etc are totes corrupt. rawr rawr
/rant. sorry.
But thank you Enty, for posting human interest stories as well as celeb gossip.
My husband knows that I will donate anything they can use and to burn the rest of me. I have received instructions from him not to donate any of his organs. I don't agree with it, but I would honour his wishes.
ReplyDeleteCan't they just test the organ to make sure it's safe now-a-days? With all the technology, I can't imagine that this would be possible.
ReplyDelete@RocketQueen...any man that has has sex with another man since 1977is ineligible to donate. woman who has had sex with a man who has had sex with a man is deffered for 1 year, I believe. Doesnt make sense, especially with the PCR HIV testing that they do now... that ess can detect HIV as little to 2 days after exposure to the virus.
ReplyDeleteI think it is a great thing to donate your body to science or for organ donation. I have so many physical problems that medical schools would probably love poking inside of me.
ReplyDeleteI do not like how recipient cases are managed. I remember hearing about celebrities who get organ replacement very quickly. Like Larry Hagman with a liver years ago. He was a known as a heavy drinker and there are more like that.
It seems, like a lot of things in our society, that if you have the cash, you can get pretty much what you want. And that is utter BS-in my opinion.
Figgy, WTF kind of medical school was this?! I've been around gross anatomy students for 11 years, and I've never seen any of them act that way. That's repugnant, and they should have been kicked out of school. There's no excuse.
ReplyDeleteAt my med school, the students don't know anything personal about the cadavers. Many of the students "name" them, anyway. At the end of the semester, a memorial service takes place. Families are encouraged to attend, and the med students do, as well. The remains are then cremated. Families can either receive the cremains or they are scattered in the Gulf of Mexico.
I'm an organ donor, but because I have systemic lupus they probably won't want anything of mine when I croak. My family knows not to keep me on machines, let them take whatever they want to take, cremate and scatter me, and no funeral or wake. I always wondered why your family and friends throw you the best party for you on the day they KNOW you can't attend. :-)
I'm sorry to say this, __-__=__, but that's a supremely ignorant and selfish stance. The hospitals don't benefit the most from organ donation -- the recipients do. Believe it or not, it costs money to operate a hospital. And the doctors have no say in how much patients are charged for anything (and rarely even know how much, for that matter).
What is this I don't even.
ReplyDeleteThanks, Lori. So outrageous.
ReplyDeleteHere in NC we have it checked on our driver's license whether we will donate or not. How the EFF is someone in a hospital somewhere gonna be able to ask me how many people I banged in the last year, if I am mangled beyond comprehension and lying there dying?
ReplyDeleteSo I can only assume this means the organs you could donate while still alive. Otherwise, how stupid?!
my dad died from a tragic car accident...my mom wasn't going to donate his organs but we (my brother and I) convinced her that it was the right thing to do. I spent forever on the phone going over what was acceptable to take. He was a smoker so some parts weren't probably good but they were able to help other people in the end.
ReplyDeleteHey Julie .. nice to see you are still with us and doing as well as you can. Stay strong.
ReplyDeleteI would strongly suggest that you seek advice from another transplant clinic. Unless your aunt has diabetes now or there are some indications that she will be suffering from it in the immediate future, it should not rule her out as a candidate. At least it wouldn't here at the U of Mn. My mom was very short to diabetes and so they ixnayed her and lo and behold she had Type 2 within 18 months. But if it is merely a "predisposition" .. check elsewhere.
Now as to the post .. the HUGE issue here is they DO NOT test organs for HIV/AIDS prior to donation. I am STILL tested for HIV. That is the real problem here. It would be wonderful if they would perhaps formulate a test that would give them that information .. rather than treating every potential organ donor and frickin' Hester Prynne. F*ckin' idiots.
As for donation, educate yourself and see if it is right for you. If it isn't .. no judgments here. However, the one reason not to donate should not be the money making on the organ.
Rest assured, I have the bill from my transplant and the surgery for my donor and there is NO charge for the organ. That is a wonderful myth about transplantation that needs to die QUICKLY! Also .. the donor also pays nothing for his/her surgery. The cost of everything is taken care of by the recipients medical insurance or medicaid/medicare.
Hope that helps ..
They don't test organs that are donated?? Seriously?? I guess I am being naive, but I just assumed they did!
ReplyDeleteAnd ditto to KLM's question!?!
I've always been listed as a donor. I've been having sex with the same dude for 10 years but before him? Don't meet their criteria. Can I still donate? Or are my organs from sluttier days not going to make the cut?
This is mind boggling...
"Here in NC we have it checked on our driver's license whether we will donate or not."
ReplyDeleteSadly, that has no legal bearing whatsoever.
I suppose they don't have time to check an organ for HIV - the transplant window is really small.
Thank you Wil, I'm going to check Jefferson. They're not as strict. Penn just strives to keep their numbers up, it's politics. I understand and all, though. It's just frustrating. And of course, if she is going to rely on it in the near future, I wouldn't want to take it from her.
ReplyDeleteAlso, I always loved that slogan about "donate your organs, you can't take them with you"