Today is the 14th Anniversary for Chanin’s lung transplantation so I’ve naturally been thinking about the topic of organ donation.  If you’d like to donate you can sign up at Donate Life and, more importantly, talk to your family about it and make your wishes known to them.  Simply put, Chanin wouldn’t be here on earth with us if some family hadn’t graciously decided to donate their loved ones organs who they tragically lost at a young age.  Nobody likes to think about this topic but in the event of some unfortunate tragedy your family will need to make some important decisions about organ donation and your wishes will guide them in the right direction.

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Chanin’s donor is a hero, and we even named our son’s middle name after him (Timothy) in his honor.  You can be a hero too!  Many people don’t want to think about death, but please just think about the following.  Any one of us could be involved in a fatal accident tomorrow.  Imagine if the very same day, or shortly thereafter, a person who was on the brink of death was brought back to life because of one of our organs.  It might be a sick child, a college student, a mother of 4, a grandfather, etc.  That person could go on living, working, celebrating holidays, driving the kids to soccer practice, singing, dancing (and much more) ALL BECAUSE you decided to donate some organs that you no longer needed.

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How else can you save someone’s life so easily?  Imagine your lungs allowing someone else to breathe, or your heart continuing to beat long after you’re gone.  What better way for your legacy to live on?

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I think the biggest reasons for people choosing not to donate are 1)  myths 2) people not expressing their wishes to their family.  I won’t go into organ donation myths here but you can read about them on the Mayo Clinic site <-click.  I will say that they are called “myths” for a reason and that organ donation is almost always portrayed the wrong way in TV/Movies.

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So, now are you going to talk to your family about organ donation and sign up to be a donor?  If you have chosen not to be a donor I have one last question.  If you found out a donated organ would enable you, your mother/father, or your child to continue living would you accept it, or let them pass on?  If you’d accept it then you owe it to society to be an organ donor also.  If you have religious reasons then this site has some excellent information.

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As of 5:26pm today there are 108,860 people waiting for the gift of life.  Doesn’ t the “gift of life” have a nice ring to it?  How does that compare to the last big gift you gave someone, which was probably a Snuggie Dog last Christmas?  Do the right thing!

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-james

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p.s. If you’ve signed up and/or talked to your family about your wished to donate your organs let us know in the comments!  Also, if you have any questions about the process Chanin would welcome them.