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AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

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Original poster

To ask you to consider organ donation?

113 replies

DrSeuss · 04/03/2011 10:05

In five days time, it will be twelve years since a dear friend received her new lungs. They were the gift of a family who had just lost their young son, Matthew, and are the only reason she is alive today. My friend, her family and any one who knows her will be eternally grateful for this gift, given at a time when they could have chosen to focus solely on themselves.

If you have not already done so, please consider carrying a donor card, putting your name on the Organ Donor Register and making your wishes known to your family.

www.uktransplant.org.uk/ukt/how_to_become_a_donor/how_to_become_a_donor.jsp

OP posts:

noddyholder · 05/03/2011 00:33

I know it is awful people don,t realise they really think dialysis is an alternative but it is just a stop gap.my mum and brother have both donated to me so I am very lucky I had ds with my first transplant and this one has been going over 10 years so very good! My dp has said he will donate to me if I ever need another you are doing an amazing thing.my mum donated in 1985 and she is amazingly fit and well as is my brother.it's great that you are a match x

ednurse · 05/03/2011 06:08

BRILLIANT THREAD!

Those worried that if they register that doctors will try not to 'save your lives' as much as if you are not on the register needn't worry. It is VERY hard to be able to get a donor in the first place, eg. someone who is going to die who is suitable for donating. In 3 and a half years of A+E work I have had just one patient who went to theatre for 'harvesting'. Doctors do extremely detailed and extensive testing into checking you are completely 'brain dead' before declaring that you are suitable for donating. Your heart must still be beating to be considered for most types of donating but you must be brain dead and on 'life support'. ITU is a place which see's more donors.

People are very quick to say that they will accept organs for themselves or their family but when it comes down to registering they are worried about it.

I've been to theatre to see a 'harvest' (I know, its not a nice term) before in which they took one kidney only (the other was too small and everything else was deemed unsuitable) it was unlike any other surgery I have ever seen. It was done in complete silence, no laughing and chatting like normal theatre procedures. It was amazing to think that this kidney taken at 5:20am in North London would be going up to a match in Liverpool and be given to it's new 'owner' by 11am was just amazing.

thumbwitch · 05/03/2011 06:50

Can't do it any more. Wish I could but I can't - I lived in England at the wrong time and various overseas countries will therefore not accept my blood or organs because of vCJD. So, as a resident of Australia, all of me will go to waste :(

Original poster

DrSeuss · 05/03/2011 22:49

Good luck to Reindeer and DH-I'll be thinking of you and your amazing gift.

My friend's husband worked for a while as a surgeon at a well known transplant unit and once had to take out the heart of a baby before returning with it so that it could be transplanted into a baby girl. Having kids of his own, or even just being human, he found it very distressing but I understand that he tried to focus on the endd, not the means,

OP posts:

lisad123isasnuttyasaboxoffrogs · 05/03/2011 22:56

I belong to both organ and bone marrow.

Organ when misdees Peter got sick and bone marrow when my DH got cancer. Both are so very important. Please please do it.

If you need more reasons here are two:

here

Whatever17 · 06/03/2011 02:36

I am sorry - but if one of my DCs died I would never organ donate. I want them buried "whole".

I would donate everything from me though.

xkittyx · 06/03/2011 04:15

I have just registered to donate my organs and also with the Anthony Nolan trust, something I kept meaning to do but this thread has reminded me to get around to it. Thank you.

noddyholder · 06/03/2011 07:56

Whatever how could you bury them whole when you don,t have their very essence there and don,t know where it is?

lisad123isasnuttyasaboxoffrogs · 06/03/2011 08:16

See I would like the idea that I was helping another little child live on so they didn't have to bury their child because of my little one. I dint see the point of burying them "whole" to just have it rot away.
You can also request only certain organs as well you know.

thumbwitch · 06/03/2011 08:45

lisad - completely agree with you - and I have PM'd you about a slightly different matter. Please let me know whether or not you have received it as MN decided to go offline seconds after I sent it!

thefirstMrsDeVere · 06/03/2011 09:41

Whatever they are not 'whole' when you bury or cremate them. They are dead. They are gone.

Cancer took my daughter away a long time before the undertakers did.

The thought that she could of helped to stop other families feeling this grief would have been such a comfort to me.

Original poster

DrSeuss · 06/03/2011 10:09

Well done Kitty, that makes five. Thanks!

OP posts:

lisad123isasnuttyasaboxoffrogs · 06/03/2011 13:12

:( thefirstmrsdevere, how you doing?

thefirstMrsDeVere · 06/03/2011 17:35

Thanks for asking lisa. I am okish. How are you doing?

lisad123isasnuttyasaboxoffrogs · 06/03/2011 17:55

Pretty ok here too :)

thefirstMrsDeVere · 06/03/2011 18:02

How is OH getting on?

YouLittlePiggy · 06/03/2011 18:15

This reply has been deleted

Message withdrawn at poster's request.

ReindeerBollocks · 06/03/2011 18:23

Noddy - we're not a direct match and are undergoing an ABO incompatible transplant. We are both beginning to be nervous about it now (13 days to go!).

We have also discussed putting the children's organs on the list. We have agreed that DD should be on the list, but are still undecided with DS, as his condition means hIs organs will probably not be used.

I understand that putting children on the list seems like tempting fate, but knowing children who have died waiting for transplants I would love for more families to discuss this. No child should die, and it must be horrendously heartbreaking as a parent to experience this, but knowing that my child could save the life of another would bring me some small comfort.

clucky80 · 06/03/2011 19:14

Hi everyone, organ donation is something that would have never entered my head until at the age of 25 I was waiting for a kidney and pancreas transplant because my kidneys were failing, I was losing my eyesight from diabetes and had alot of other problems. I was lucky enough to receive my transplant when I was 26 and it changed my life. I was the third person in the UK to have a baby after a kidney and pancreas transplant and I think about 21st in the world, in November 2010 when I had my baby boy. I wrote to my donors mum after my transplant to thank her for the wonderful gift of her sons organs (he was 19) and I explained to her how much it had changed my life. She wrote back and told me that as heartbreaking as the decision was to donate her sons organs, she knew from reading my letter that she had made the right decision and he had also saved the life of 4 other people. I think about my donor all the time and my son is Oliver Lawrence, Lawrence was my donors name. I have benefitted so much from my transplant and I and everyone who knows me have joined the register. I can totally understand though people's fears and feelings about organ donation and I think rather than an 'opt out' system, there should be more education about organ donation so that people are more informed on making such a decision. I can't imagine how difficult a decision this is to make on behalf of your child when it is something that you have never discussed or thought about before,I just wanted to show how life changing it is for a recipient.

Sassybeast · 06/03/2011 19:49

Registered and signed up for organ/bone marrow and blood donation.

And if all else fails and none of the above are of any use to anyone else, I am seriously considering donating my whole body for medical research :

www.hta.gov.uk/bodyorganandtissuedonation/howtodonateyourbody.cfm

giveitago · 06/03/2011 19:57

Oh - really really the height issue? I must look into this as both my mum and I want to (and it's great that posts like this jog our memories and get us to do something about it) but I'm only 5ft and my dm is even shorter.

Why a height restriction?

noddyholder · 06/03/2011 19:58

Wow reindeer I don't know much about those although have heard it discussed.i know it involves an initial drug regime which starts before the operation and is slightly different iirc. I am sure you are nervous it is huge to do this but hopefully it will as clucky says change your lives.There is not a day that I am not grateful for what my mum and brother did for me.I could never have had ds and I certainly wouldn't have been able to have the life I have on dialysis.I think by more people donating and the surgery becoming more common they will perfect it and the drugs and the whole process will become 'normal' xx

shloo · 09/03/2011 09:26

Hello there!

Don't know if anyone is still keeping up with this thread but my work relates to organ donation and this thread is fab. Can I please urge anyone who has said they don't want an organ used because they think it might not be usable (perhaps due to a previous illness) to reconsider? Please do make sure your organ donor register entry includes all the organs you would like to be used if they possibly can.

Medicine advances all the time, and many organs can now be used that might not have been in the past. What happens now is, if the donor has ticked all the boxes except one or two (say the liver), then the medical team talks through with the family why that might be the case. If it's because the donor thought the organ wouldn't be usable, then there's the opportunity to look at it anyway. But if your register entry is clear about what you would like to donate if you can, then it saves your family having to deal with that conversation.

Of course, if there were different reasons for saying no, or the family just aren't sure, then they are not retrieved.

thank you!

shloo (registered many years ago now after getting to know a transplant recipient and realising how important it is).

lesley33 · 09/03/2011 10:30

I think donating is a great idea. However if I'm honest I have reservations about doing it myself. I'm not totally clear why I don't want to.

I think it is partly being worried that Dr's won't fight as hard to save me. I also think it is partly squeamishness. I'm not saying this is reasonablke, but just being honest.

shabbapinkfrog · 09/03/2011 10:36

All my family are on the register. It is very important to us.

In 1992 my DS3 was killed by a reversing lorry - he was almost 8 years old. He always wanted a big willy When he heard about Organ donation he asked 'If I get one of those cards and they have any willies do you think I can have one?

He got himself a card from the local chemist and I put his details on and then he signed it.

He was declared dead on arrival at hospital. A very short while after I asked the nurse please could he donate his organs. She was very shocked and I told her to look in his jeans pocket because there would be a donor card there. Sadly because of his injuries he couldn't donate his major organs BUT my smashing little lad donated both his corneas. I was told later that week that two children would now have sight thanks to him.

It is one of the few things that bring me comfort all these years down the line. May I urge anyone who reads this to become an organ donor.

You did a good job my little man......hope you have now got a massive willy xxxxxxxxxxxx

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