Tissue donated to an 85 year old

[Nc4post99]

This is a mild aibu, as in if I’m BU please don’t be mean about it, it’s a painful situation.

I lost my father, quite traumatically in the summer. I used the staff loo in the itu and I saw the poster for involuntary organ and tissue donation in the toilet. I’ve always said when I die, If possible I’d want them to take everything and to tell my loved ones of all those helped/ saved. When he passed, I asked the nurse about it and they mentioned due to cancer he wouldn’t be a candidate for organ donation (which I was really disappointed about) but could donate some tissue if we were happy to progress. Nhs BT called and explained it all and it helped me through the grief was the mantra ‘the worst day of my life could be/ could lead to the best day of someone else’s. I thought it would bring me peace and this greater sense of understanding/ the circle of life if we got told that someone would be able to see again.

So we got the letter today, one cornea was used for an 85 year old and the other one was unusable even for research. But I don’t feel the peace/ understanding that I thought I would. I don’t know if it’s not how I envisioned in my head, a young person people able to see again or see for the first time and it was someone who was close to 20 years older than my father. I don’t know if it’s because the other was useless or i don’t know if it’s because I’d hyped it up so much in my head but it all feels anti climactic.

Please don’t mistake this for ageism, I am glad someone life has been made better by my dads and that he’s still touching lives after he’s gone but I’d like to understand my feelings and if they are irrational

Please be kind

You feel how you feel

But my 79 year old FIL is waiting for a cornea and it will make a huge difference to his life, and that of his mrs, and to his role as father and grandfather, so know that your Dad’s donation will have made a huge difference to someone and likely their family too. It might be older people’s corneas won’t last so long, so older recipients are better (IDK).

You're feelings are absolutely valid op.

We see so many things online about recipients of organ donations, young men being able to play football again, recipients walking the daughter of their donor down the aisle, parents rejoicing at being able to hear their child heartbeat again through the recipient.... and on and on it goes.

In my experience its just not like that, and it isn't talked about enough.

My son died, he was very young, and I was able to donate his organs.

I never felt this huge sense of pride and obligation, more like I just didn't want someone feeling like I was at that moment and it made no difference to my situation at that point.

I received a letter giving basic details of the people who's lives his organs improved and saved and I felt nothing at all and they were all children. I wanted to, I really did, but I just felt empty.

I braced myself for wanting to track them down and be all joyous and have these kids become like a second family etc, but there was just nothing.

This was quite a few years ago now and I still feel the same. I know it sounds utterly heartless, and I know it sounds even worse that if I could choose them all being sick again but me having my son back I would do it in a second.

I can hear myself and I know I sound awful, I really do. But it isn't like we expect it to be when we make these decisions.

I'm glad that organ donation exists, and I would definitely make the choice again, and am on the register myself, but its more because I would want that help if I was in the position to need one for myself or my kids .

I'm so sorry you have to miss your dad op. Don't be too hard on yourself

I am sorry for your loss it's hard to know how you would have felt in that situation, but what I do know, as others have said, is thanks to you and your lovely dad, an 85 year old has been given the gift of sight again, and that is priceless

I think perspective will allow you to be glad that an 85 year old was helped in such a life-changing way by your donation. More glad even than if it was a younger person as loss of balance and decline in other senses makes a blind older person especially vulnerable.
However, as pointed out by someone else, it highlights the fact that your dad didn't make it to that age and at the moment it irrationally but totally understandably possibly feels like the recipient not only is still alive at 85 but has also received this gift from your dad.

It was a wonderful thing to do, nothing changes that. Am so sorry you have lost your dad.

@AlternativePerspective

At the end of the day no-one wants to be in a position to donate their loved one’s organs. It’s something they want to do in the absence of hope and the ability to do so. Iyswim.

I need a heart transplant, although I am currently skirting just on the edge of having to go on the list, and the one thing I have struggled with from the day I was told I need a transplant is the fact that in order for me to have a longer term future, someone else will have to die. I would rather they didn’t have to, and similarly my family would rather I didn’t die on the transplant list. But in the event I do, I want any viable parts of me to be donated where possible. I don’t actually know if any of me will be eligible, but that’s up to the professionals to decide.

I don’t think I’d see it as ‘someone needs to die’ for you to live, it’s more like ‘people do die anyway, so why not recycle the organs’ (with consent, I would add. Everyone is automatically on the organ donor list now so that might be a moot point)? Look at it as making the most of the most wonderful and strange ‘mechanism’ that our bodies are.

I’m so sorry, OP for the loss of your dear father

I lost mine too last month and I am not in the same country as him so the guilt is overwhelming, last year it was my dear mother. It’s hard and you have to be gentle with yourself, take it day by day, step by step, hour by hour. It’s normal to feel whatever you feel, don’t feel bad and just allow the feelings to pass through you, don’t block them by saying it’s not an appropriate feeling, as I don’t think trying to censor grief emotions is helpful. Allow yourself to process these painful emotions as they come up and don’t judge yourself for any feelings.

I’m so sorry for the loss of your father, it is especially hard when it feels ‘before their time’.

His legacy is in you and many other people he will have impacted in life. Any additional legacy after death is always secondary to that. That said please don’t underestimate the benefit of that last gift to an elderly woman. Even if she has just months it will transform the rest of her life.

I've donated blood
I hope that it helped someone or many people
I don't care who, what age or why
My donation was given freely, with no strings attached

I am sorry for your loss

You are not unreasonable at all to be finding it hard to still be processing your grief and realising this donation hasn’t given you the peace you hoped for.

For what it’s worth, you did a wonderful thing on behalf of your dad. My dad is a similar age, and although he hasn’t needed a corneal transplant, the eye surgery he has had recently has been life-changing. Literally I was seeing him age in front of me, shuffling rather than walking losing confidence, deeply anxious about when he might lose the ability to read which is so important to him… after the surgery he is back to his old self. Thank you for giving another older person that same chance.

Sorry for your loss and agree - please don’t underestimate the benefit of that last gift to an elderly woman. An 85 year old could have another 15 years of life - that's not a waste at all.

Your dad enhanced someone else’s life. How precious is that?

I lost some of my vision due to diabetes, I was quite young. I really thank your dad for his gift, it’s brilliant.

I understand . I think most elderly people would want their organs to go into a Young life to enjoy etc. Anyone that gets an organ will cherish it and make the best life they can. Grief comes in stages and this is part of it. You’ve done something for your dad and the organ recipient .

This must be so hard for you and I echo all the other pp your feelings are so valid and your grief will take time to ease.

I had a patient (nothing related to eyesight or cancer) they were someone I found it difficult to connect with, they were awkward and their treatment was always tricky. I dreaded them coming in, not because of them but because I struggled with finding them tricky and it wasn’t their fault. Anyway they came in one day and had had cataract surgery and were just chatting about how they could read again, I love reading, always have. I was just able to connect with that person a bit more and so didn’t worry about them coming in. It made no difference to how I was or treated them it just was easier for me personally. Anyway the reason I’m posting is to say being able to see is such a huge gift and you did so well making that happen for someone no matter their age x

I’m very sorry for your loss OP, I haven’t read the whole thread but just wanted to say that the cornea that your father donated could have given someone much more than just their sight back, at that age, it could make the difference between being able to stay independent or not. My nan is a similar age and is battling to stay independent at the moment so i just wanted to say your fathers gift could have meant so much to the recipient.

There were of course no strings attached to any donation and at the time I know I’d have been thrilled it was going to someone, anyone. It’s quite fitting in some sense because, it was said by lots of people, his eyes were his best feature, they were quite an icy, Steele blue colour. When I learned of the cornea donation being the only option, I was hesitant because they eyes are so, I don’t know, visible, organs in the chest cavity are covered with clothes. But the thought of someone / anyone getting his eyes which were his best feature, in the end seemed quite poetic.

No one explained anything about the triage process for tissue donation, i assumed it would be like organ donation so what a lot of posters said about it not necessarily being viable for a younger person makes sense, especially in light of the fact that the other was ‘no good’. That was my greatest fear that both would be no good. My mother isn’t a fan of donation but my dad was an Anthony Nolan donor prior to getting cancer, i wouldn’t say I talked her into it but I did explain how it could change someone’s life and the worst day of our lives could lead to the best of someone else’s. For a while after I felt guilty, unsure if that’s what he wanted, wondering (irrationally of course) if he was lonely and cold in the morgue (where he was kept prior to the retrieval) or if he felt pain. Silly I know but I can’t explain it.

I think I expected some miracle healing or weight to be lifted but I feel very little. I didn’t expect to feel this way. Given how poorly he was for the last 5 years at least, it’s easy to forget that he was actually quite young in the grand scheme of things.

I’d like to thank everyone who’s shared a story of how their elderly loved one would benefit from something like this. I’d never thought of the extended impact to wider family and friends, thank you for sharing that with me.

I wonder if maybe I feel some latent jealousy deep down (ugly of me I know) not only about age but also that my dad will never see his grandchildren. My eldest wasn’t even 2 when he died and I was 5 months pregnant with my second, now 3 months. One of his last lucid acts was showing his nurse videos of my daughter on his phone, videos were all he had. He’d not seen her since she was 3 months, the pandemic took so much from us.

Oh my goodness not ugly at all, your update just makes even more sense why you are finding this all so difficult. Would the organ donation service be able to help with someone to talk things through?

Just from what you did and how you post I think you will be able to feel what a positive action you were able to make because of what your dad wanted in time xoxo

DS2 has just received a donated cornea, his second, since the first did not take properly. Without it, he would have lost the sight in the eye, at the age of 43, with 5 young children. He does a valuable job, especially in this time of covid, and has half a century of life, God willing, ahead of him. I am so grateful to donors and their families for their incredible generosity.

‘I wonder if maybe I feel some latent jealousy deep down (ugly of me I know) not only about age but also that my dad will never see his grandchildren.’

I suspect it may be this. And it isn’t ugly, it’s natural. I know how it feels. I’ve spent years having to analyse my own personal similar feelings.

It isn’t ageist, it is envy. I am very familiar with the feeling. My children were very young when my father died; I understand. Big hugs.

Oh OP. Please allow yourself those "ugly" feelings you have been through a heck of a lot

An 85 year old could live for another 20 years; a 20 year old could live for another 20 days

You're not in the least unreasonable to have these thoughts. You are grieving after all. I hope, in time, you will find peace With the outcome that it will have really improved the quality of an elderly persons life, someone who is possibly quite vulnerable.

My mum is 90 years old. She lives on her own, gets around the town, still has all her old chums that she meets regularly for afternoon tea and has a great love of soap operas. She is getting her corneas done later this year (Godwilling). She has a really good quality of life - but it will be improved when she can see better. Please know that whoever got the cornea both needed it and will be very, very grateful for it. It could be life changing for them. So thank you for your donation.

@Nc4post99 Once you agreed to the tissue being used, you had no control over who it was donated to. But you helped plant a seed. Maybe that 85 year old can now see properly enough to donate a large cheque to charity. Or they will influence or shape the life of a young person who will do something meaningful or important in the future. You're grieving, be kind to yourself, do something nice for yourself.

My grandmother was a similar age when she received a cornea, it was a wonderful thing. She had been partially sighted for most of her life and from the age of around 70 her sight had been light and dark only. She hadn't seen my grandfather or her children properly since she was about 50, she hadn't seen her grandchildren or her great grandchildren. She suddenly could see again and it was one of the best things to happen to me in my life and I'm in my mid fifties. She would wonder at the world, we took her to see people and took her on outings, the world was a colourful and wonderful place. I'm welling up thinking about it. She was a wonderful woman. The cornea started to deteriorate and when she died at 96 she was pretty much blind again, but oh what those years meant to her, I cannot stress enough. You did a truly wonderful thing. I am eternally grateful to the family of the donor, I will be donating everything of mine, they can have it all, if it means someone can experience what my grandmother did.