About a month ago I was working on a case when a coworker told me a story of an event that had happened in St Louis earlier that morning.
Before I proceed I need to start with a little bit of education. Brain death is the most common form of death that qualifies for organ donation. Once a patient has suffered from a severe brain injury and the prognosis is grim the hospital contacts an Organ Procurement Organization (OPO). This is who I work for. We then travel to the hospit
al to evaluate the patient and await for brain death to occur and declaration of death to be pronounced. Once death has been declared then our Family Support Specialists approach the family to ask for consent for organ donation.
The consent process changed in the fall of 2008. There are now 48 states that have passed the First Person Consent law. This is the only decision that an individual can make about their medical wishes that their family cannot override in a time of crisis. If I were to go to an attorney’s office Monday and fill out paperwork for a living will, I have wasted my money.
A living will is a description of the medical decisions you want made in the event that you can no longer make them yourself. You have been involved in an automobile accident and have suffered serious injuries, you are in the intensive care unit, on a breathing machine and the doctors are telling your family your injuries are non-survivable. Your spouse looks over your living will, decides they do not agree with the decisions you have made and make their own decisions for your care. Those decisions were made by you in the hopes that your family would not have to make any unwanted, hard and painful choices. In the midst of extreme trauma all logical thinking is out the window. Your living will does not matter if your legal next of kin or Durable Power of Attorney decides to change your wishes.
First Person Consent for organ donation is a different set of laws. I signed-up to be an organ donor on the Missouri Donor Registry and my decision has been made; no one can take that away from me. When the family support person speaks to your spouse, mom, dad, brother, sister etc… your family no longer has to decide if this is something you would have wanted. They can know beyond a shadow of a doubt this is what you wanted, there is no choice that has to be made and everything is going to be done to see that your wishes are followed.
Speaking with your family about the care of your body and the medical treatment you desire in the unfortunate event that you cannot speak for yourself is so important.
I guess story time will have to wait. A little bit of education turned into a lot and I still have more to go. To be continued…
Wow have I lost track of the time. I cannot believe it has been over a month since I have written an entry and it feels like it was last week. Time is flying this year and days are getting away from me. I have learned so much and feel I have grown even more. My ideals are changing, my surroundings are improving and my life is evolving into something I never imagined for myself. I know, big dreamer.
I never pictured myself being in the kind of position I am in now. I don’t really know why, maybe it was because, between work and school full-time, I didn’t have time to think that big . It truly is amazing what you miss when your head is stuck in a text book, reference book, power point presentation etc. I did not have time to think about my future goals or ambitions. Now all of a sudden they are staring me in the face.
I am educating the community and health care professionals on organ donation. I am helping build better relationships between Mid American Transplant Services and our regional hospitals; generating ideas that our CEO would like to take through out the entire region. I am loving the professionalism that is within my new position; working with surgeons, physician assistants, nurse practitioners, planning conferences and meetings. On top of all that I AM SAVING LIVES!!! I have helped with 12 donors in four months, totaling 46 LIVES SAVED and who knows how many others improved through tissue donation.
That is just what is happening in my professional life. Personally I am joining a charity called H.O.P.E Sertoma. This is a local charity that has been designed by women to help raise funds for those suffering from pediatric emergencies. I am also awaiting a response from the March of Dimes local Board of Directors to hopefully become the newest member. I am finding community members that have been touched by organ donation in some way and asking them to be volunteers for us. To share their story and spread the amazing news about organ donation and what it is doing for people across the nation.
I have so much more to tell and write. This position is keeping me extremely busy and fulfilled in my career. I truly hope to get back on track with this because I really feel it will be another means of education and awareness for many causes.
So, I did my first charity event two weeks ago with my husband, Chris. It was the 3 mile Heart Walk for the American Heart Association. We raised $200, not as much as I would have liked but it was something. We were the only ones on our team and we walked the whole way, it felt great. I’m ready to do more.
I also went to the initial volunteer training for the Make-A-Wish foundation. I am so excited to get started with this foundation. I really want to go through training to be a Wish Granter. I would be able to meet kiddos that are terminally ill and their family to find out what it is that would be their greatest wish. Once that wish is established, I would get to help make it happen: the planning, timing, reservations, everything. Oh, I think it would be such a great opportunity and another way to make a difference in the life of the living.
I still need to make phone calls to the Literacy Council and the Boys and Girls Club to set up some volunteer activities with them. This new position is keeping me a lot busier then I ever thought it would. Not that this is a bad thing. I love what I am doing; it is more rewarding then I already knew it would be. I have been going to meetings with the local hospitals, teaching new nurses and nursing students about donation (I really love that part) as well as being on call and being prepared to be at the hospital at any waking moment. This really is the most incredible career I could have ever walked into.
The next team event I am captain of is the March for Babies that I have spoken about in previous posts. I have the support of 5 other walkers and we have raised about 1/5 of our goal. This is a cause that hits very close to home for me; it reaches out to women that fall in the high risk category of pregnancy and those babies that are born premature. I do not have children yet but I am considered high risk and it is great to have a charity out there that would help me if I needed it and I feel I need to give back. Pay it Forward. To help support babies and their mother’s please visit: http://www.marchforbabies.org/team/t1375745.
So I’ve been talking, rather hounding, my husband about eating better and being more active. I would like to have a life partner not one I lose at a very young age. You see he is slightly overweight with high cholesterol and high blood pressure and he turns 30 this year. He also has a family history of diabetes and he is not very active. He scares me. I have seen 35 year old men come into the emergency room with a severe heart attack or stroke and die within hours. These men come in with the same physical history as my husband.
I have signed up to be a speaker for the American Heart Association to spread the word about heart healthy living. This goes hand in hand with donation. The difference is, my patients are those people that chose not to live a healthy life. Now I have a husband that is at risk, dare I say, of being an organ donor from a cholesterol clot moving to his brain and causing a stroke. Not only that risk but high blood pressure causes your heart to work harder and eventually slow down causing blood to be stagnant and form a clot. That clot then becomes dislodged and moves to the brain, guess what, causing a stroke. Ugh, it is really not that hard to take care of yourself people.
Risk factors for heart attack and stroke are essentially the same. There are those you can’t control: increasing age, sex, race, previous heart attack or stroke, and family history. There are factors that you have complete control over: high blood pressure, cigarette smoking, high blood cholesterol, sedentary lifestyle, obesity and diabetes. What people aren’t thinking about is that all of these factors are also increasing your risk for becoming brain dead and your family having to make a decision to donate your organs. Some very sick person will thank you for your inability to save yourself from yourself but your loved ones, I’m afraid, are not going to be so grateful.
Everyone needs to get it out of their head that fad dieting and extreme exercise is the answer to all their health and weight loss problems. Yes I agree that being at a healthy weight for your body and being active is one of the
most important things you can do for yourself but there are right and wrong ways of going about it.
Please visit the American Heart Association site and learn what you can do to save yourself and enjoy your life and family for as long as possible. Don’t be the one that couldn’t prevent themselves from dying young.
I apologize if I am being harsh. Feel free to contact me with any questions.
Fifteen days since I’ve written and those days have been, for the most part, absolutely crazy. I spent the first part of that completing my last stay in St Louis. That’s right I said last (last of the 8 day stretches anyway), I am finally home and getting into some sort of a groove, or at least trying to. The first week home I was not on-call but Springfield was busy busy. I worked two cases but had the potential for four. I slept half the day on the 24th due to being in the operating room on a kid over night.
Did you know that less than 1% of deaths are candidates for organ donation?
Just because someone dies does not mean they are eligible to donate their organs. They have to meet certain criteria; the person has to have sustained some sort of head injury. This means you have a stroke from bleeding (hemorrhagic), maybe from an aneurysm rupture, a vessel tear from high blood pressure or from traumatic head injury. Other reasons for brain injury are caused from lack of oxygen to the brain maybe from your heart stopping for an extended period of time (anoxic) or you have a blood clot in your body that moves to the brain and cuts off oxygen supply to part of the tissue (ischemic).
A traumatic hemorrhage could be sustained from several possibilities. A visit to the chiropractor and you get work done to your neck, the next thing you know your carotid artery (the main artery supplying blood to your brain) has been severed by improper movement. You are 20 years old and out on a joy ride with some friends, the driver is being a prankster and looses control, the car swerves and hits a pole, you aren’t wearing your seat belt and are thrown from the vehicle hitting your head on a tree. This causes your brain to rub against the skull several times causing massive injury throughout the brain. Or, for whatever reason, you get a bullet, knife, piece of a car or any other sharp object penetrating into the brain. All of these scenarios, and many others, cause an injury to the brain that usual involves bleeding, fracture, swelling and lack of oxygen to the brain tissue.
In order to be an organ donor from any of these types of brain injuries you must suffer either severe deficits and require life support for the remainder of your existence (which most people would not want to live like this) or you are declared brain dead.
Oh my what a week. Sorry it’s been so long since I posted last. I was sick at the beginning of the week and then finally made it to St Louis for more training. I have been nonstop since arriving.
I have finally received some information on more volunteer opportunities but it is still not coming together as quickly as I had hoped. I did get a packet to start speaking for groups for the American Heart Association, now I just need an event to speak at. I can see it now, standing in front of a big crowd, my face becoming flushed and getting shaky and sweaty when I begin speaking. It is going to take some getting used to speaking to groups. I am looking forward to this new personal challenge.
I received a call from the lady at the United Way. She has given me a couple of numbers to be a mentor for the Boys and Girls Club as well as volunteer with the Ozarks Literacy Council. I think I will do a little better with speaking for those groups; surely I can read a book to kids without getting flushed and sweaty. I am also going to try to recruit some friends to sign-up to volunteer with United Way and work for the seniors in our community. They send groups out to do yard work for seniors that don’t have family, friends or maybe don’t leave or can’t do the work themselves. Surely I have people in my life that would want to help those in need. I know my husband is ready to sign-up. 
I’ve been truly amazed by the lack of response/support I have gotten for the American Heart Walk or March for Babies I am doing. I guess I really thought people would want to do something to help others, whether that be to walk or give support by donations. I have been proven wrong. It hurts my heart to know that people don’t want to put effort forth to help others.
I am still waiting to hear from the Make-A-Wish foundation. I really want to work with the kids doing Wish Granting but I have to take volunteer classes first. I can’t seem to get anyone to tell me when the classes are, I have been approved as a volunteer but that’s as far as it’s gone. I guess I thought these groups would be excited about new people volunteering and be ready to get them started but maybe I am wrong. This is one of the opportunities I am really looking forward to so I am going to keep pushing for it.
I do have a training class for the American Red Cross on Friday. I am looking forward to that. I got an email last week to be on a heads up because our area was possibly getting tornadoes and the Red Cross was going to need support. Luckily we weren’t needed, but without that class I would have been no help and I didn’t like that feeling. Maybe someday I can retire from nursing and put my entire heart and soul into volunteering for the community and local charities. I guess we will see what life hands me in the future.
I have been home for 4 days and although I haven’t had any cases I have been go, go, go. It’s amazing how you can think that your week is going to be slow and uneventful but in thinking that you have jinxed yourself. I have had meeting after meeting and lunch after lunch. The lunches just sound awful don’t they. Greek Mediterranean one day then Italian the next then sushi for dinner. OMG, I just don’t know what I am going to do about all this food. Oh wait, yes I do, gain a bigger butt. 
My husband, he’s a little jealous, he doesn’t get to join me. Poor guy. 
My meetings have been with Chaplains, an Ethicist, my coworkers, education for nursing students and the CEO. I bought 3 new suites when I got this position. I was so excited to have a reason to wear suites. Is that weird? I hadn’t gotten to wear one yet until yesterday. It felt great, and I think the look fits me well.
We did education with nursing students that went really well. I was observing one of my coworkers talk and I was piping in to help them understand concepts of brain death and head injury better. After my explanation the whole class said “Oh!!”, like a big light bulb went off. It was awesome. I am going to start teaching and eventually this will be one of my roles. I was so excited about educating when I applied for the position. I never thought that was possible but now the idea of teaching thrills me.
I finally got to get back in the gym. I got on a spin bike for the first time and I loved it. It’s amazing,I have no endurance to run but I can get on a bike and I feel like going for hours. I purchased books on road biking to get me started for the summer and I am thinking about purchasing a spin bike. I have signed up to take spinning, cardio kickboxing and strength training all twice a week starting Monday. I’m so excited!! Time to get into shape people. Summer is around the corner and I want to be in the best shape of my life.
My volunteer work is still a bit frustrating. I was sent a speech opportunity with the American Heart Association that someone responded to just minutes before I did, so I didn’t get it. I’m still waiting to hear back from several places and the United Way lady and I have been playing phone tag all week. My Heart Walk and March for Babies teams that I am captain of are not where I want them. I can’t seem to recruit many walkers or sponsors. I guess it will all come together when it is supposed to.
That’s my week in a nutshell. I made a list Monday night, as I was laying in bed not being able to sleep, of everything I wanted to get accomplished this week. I haven’t even tackled half of it. Tomorrow I am going out with the ladies and Sunday is lounge day. I guess the list will have to wait for another week.