Happy to donate

I’m doing this to support Donate Life Week 2012 [19 to 26 February ] FilmLife Blogger Challenge, encouraged by the FilmLife Project.

Can't get far without!

My favourite slogan has always been “Don’t send your organs to Heaven because we need them far more down here!”

Previously I have recorded on my drivers license and registered online that I am willing to donate any body parts that might help others towards health, when I die. At 60, I could realistically die any time, although I am likely to live quite a bit longer, given my genes and if I am happy [rather than depressed]. If I get to 95 as my father did, there may not be much of me left worth sharing! However, if I’m struck down by a car or sudden fatal illness, most of my organs should be good for someone or something.

Obviously I’m not a young person, but hopefully some young people will read some of the blogs in the project and sort out their organ donation intentions while they are young and can talk with their families and loved ones. My partner and I have discussed this and we both agree that organ donation should be our fates after death. We have no qualms about having life-preservation machinery turned off if we have a dire prognosis and we have no close relatives who believe in burying intact bodies after we die.

I am constantly amazed by others who have strange Christian beliefs concerning the intactness of their bodies for admission to their “Heaven”. I thought Christians believed their SOULS went to “Heaven”, not some physical representation of their earthbound body and I fail to see how a soul could have mass or occupy space! It must also be difficult for other faiths, such as Judaism and Islam, to donate organs, since they believe the intact body must be committed to the ground as quickly as possible. I have no idea what Hindus and Sikhs believe about organ donation since they traditionally burn corpses in funeral pyres. Does anyone know if they are allowed to burn a body without its internal organs?

Since Buddhists don’t believe an intact body is necessary for the soul to pass to its next life in the journey to Nirvana, I assume they are fine with donating body parts, as would be the Tibetans who use Sky Burial. There is no point in believing in only giving intact bodies to the vultures as they’re going to tear everything apart in order to eat it!

I don’t have any belief in the after-life, any sort of “Heaven” or “Hell”, nor even a belief that I have a soul, so none of these rituals surrounding my death bother me. My preference would be to have compost made from any left over physical body after my death, while my “self” would merely cease to exist, except in the memories of my friends. Frightening, but that’s the deal, I believe!

Answering the FilmLife questions:

1. What’s your take on or experience with organ donation, and why did you choose to take part in the FilmLife Blogger Challenge?

I chose to take part in the Challenge in the hope that some readers might discuss their own beliefs and decide that organ donation would be a good thing. Even if people decide they could not donate in the present, maybe the seeds of an idea will be planted, for later germination.

2. If you were to donate your organs, which one would you love to donate, and why?

All organs are equal in death, as far as I am concerned, but my preference if pushed would be to have my kidneys used. I believe that donating a kidney to a well-matched recipient might give someone the chance of a full lifespan, whereas without it they might only live a few years or months. When I was a child, there was a young girl in our street who was my age, but she had some kidney disease which made her very ill and often unable to attend school. She rarely appeared to play in the bush or ride our bicycles around the neighbourhood. Gwyneth seemed a sad girl, she looked as though she might have been in pain and was a real contrast in appearance to her pretty, rosy-cheeked sister. If only kidney transplants were available in the 1960s, she might still be having a good life right now. R.I.P. Gwyneth.

I have known two people who have had heart transplants and a stack of older people who have had corneas replaced. The heart transplants seemed rather traumatic for all involved, both men in their 40s with families and responsibilities. One of them recovered sufficiently after a lot of illness and complications to resume work with light duties while the other died about 12 months after the transplant. Heart transplants seem rather fraught, even for highly publicised people like Fiona Cootewho is alive and well 25 years after her first heart transplant when she was just fourteen.

Fiona Coote

Liver transplants seem like a marvellous idea, but I don’t know anyone who has received one. Given what I know about livers, I can’t imagine it is easy to transplant them, join them up to all the veins, arteries and ducts they need to work properly and then make them last. Donating a liver seems very generous but somehow sounds like a terrible risk for the recipient- although since they face eventual death with no functioning liver, a few months extra may seem worthwhile. Personally, I wouldn’t have a liver transplant- I’d just get palliative care for some months & pull the plug once I became unable to function at more than 50%. My impression is that most other people would be very happy to risk everything and take the transplant because some lucky recipients live for a long time afterwards. Let’s see what happens to Derryn Hinch.

Derryn Hinch recovering

Incidentally, I think he deserved his chance with a transplant as he had been an alcoholic due to mental health problems [as with most people addicted to anything]; he had given up drink and cleaned up his life and body in readiness for the rare gift of a suitable organ.

3. Who in your family would you need to talk to about organ donation, to be sure your loved ones knew your wishes?

As I have no close blood relatives [parents, siblings] and just my partner, Spotrick, in my life, there is no one to discuss my intentions with except my partner, and we have agreed that organ donation is exactly what we want. Easy for us! If my older cousins who live interstate and overseas even notice my death I’d be surprised and I don’t think they would assume they’d get a say in the fate of my organs!

You can read all about the FilmLife Challenge at: www.filmlife.com.au so that if you’re interested in submitting a film blog, you can get involved.

If you also blog for the challenge, make sure you Tweet your blog out using the hashtag #filmlifeproject - and FilmLife will  retweet via their Twitter account, @filmlifeproject.

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