Make your wishes known about organ donation
6:24 p.m. Wednesday, November 19, 2008
"Death does something, it makes you change, it starts making you think about your future."
But every now and then, Michele Lester chooses to reminisce about the past.
"It was crazy, they were telling me I was losing my child and it was crazy."
Robianna Jones was a basketball player, an "A" student and her mother's best friend, She died at 14 after complications with juvenile arthritis.
"I mean I was angry, mad, in grief, confused, just shocked," Lester said.
And in the middle of all that, Michele was approached by a complete stranger.
"They tell me what they want, and they ask for her eyes and tissue cornea," she said.
Without hesitation, Michele said yes to that stranger, who was a donation counselor.
"To me at that moment, it felt like there was going to be a part of her still here," Lester said. "It's the kind of gift you can't get anywhere else."
It's also the hardest gift to ask for. This year, Nancy Jacobs had to approach 180 families as a donation counselor with the Midwest Transplant Network.
"I know that this is one of the most difficult times in their entire lives," Jacobs said.
Jacobs managed to secure organ donation from 133 of those families, but she says it can take some persuasion.
"One of the things that we do is prepare ourselves for that by bringing a document that shows the date that they enrolled themselves in that Kansas Donor Registry," Jacobs said.
98% of donors learn about the registry at the Department of Motor Vehicles when drivers are given the option to designate donor on their license.
Robianna's mother remembered the conversation she had at the DMV with her daughter, saying she wanted to be a donor. But just because you decide it here does not mean your organs will be donated.
Kansas state law requires a person's next of kin to make the final decision. Even if you are a registered donor, your family still has to approve donating your organs and they all need to agree.
Which is why Jacobs says you must go a step further and communicate your final wishes.
"It's the critical factor in families giving the consent to donation," she said.
"That's a decision that you do not want to have to make at that awkward moment of losing your child and ten minutes later and these people are saying we need these organs, would you like to give them and then having to make that decision," Lester said.
Its been three years since Michele made that decision. Now she's an organ donation advocate, sharing Robianna's story in hopes others will choose to give the gift of life.
The laws are different in other states. Missouri, Iowa and Oklahoma don't require the legal guardians to make the final decision about organ donation.
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