WORLD WIDE AWARENESS!!!!

ORGAN DONATION:

GIVE THE GIFT OF LIFE!!!!!

Everyone at BlogCatalog hopes you will join us and blog this Wednesday in the first world wide blogger social campaign to raise awareness about organ donation and the issues surrounding organ donation.

Be an Organ and Tissue Donor

Help Create a Donation Friendly America!

Each organ and tissue donor saves or improves the lives of as many as 50 people. Giving the "Gift of Life" may lighten the grief of the donor's own family. Many donor families say that knowing other lives have been saved helps them cope with their tragic loss.

My husband was a organ and tissue donor, when he died three years ago. I am glad to know because of him being a donor he might have saved several other peoples lives.

The Shortage:

Each day, about 77 people receive organ transplants. However, 19 people die each day waiting for transplants that can't take place because of the shortage of donated organs.

How to get started:

1. Register with your state donor registry
2. Designate your decision on your driver’s license. Do this when you obtain or renew your license.
3. Sign a donor card now. Carry the donor card with you until you can designate your donation decision on your driver’s license or join a donor registry
4. Talk to your family now about your donation decision. Help your family understand your wish to be an organ and tissue donor before a crisis occurs. Then they will be prepared to serve as your advocate for donation.

Organs and tissues which can be donated:

Organs that can be procured include: the heart, intestines, kidneys, lungs, liver, pancreas. These are procured from a brain dead donor or a donor where the family has consent for donation after cardiac death also know as DCD. This is where the donor has not progressed to brain death.

The following tissues can be procured include: bones, tendons, corneas, heart valves, femoral veins, great saphenous veins, small saphenous veins, pericardium, skin grafts. These are only procured after someone has died.

Organs that can be donated from living donors include the lung, partial liver or pancreas and the kidney.

To find more information visit: OrganDonor.Gov