I received an awesome email the other day.  It was from Damon, the 1,000^th heart recipient in Utah.  The email contained some pictures as attachments and simply read, “We were at our stand at the Park City farmers market 2 weeks ago and you’ll never guess who we ran into?”

I opened the first attachment and saw Damon standing next to a man in a large hat with his face mostly shaded.  I thought, “You’re right.  I will never guess who you ran into!”

I opened the next picture and in this picture both men had their wives standing next to them and the man in the hat’s face was more visible.  “Oh my gosh,” I thought.  “He ran into Greg.”  Greg had gone into heart failure in late April and was put on a full artificial heart on May 1.  After spending four months living in the hospital, Greg received a heart transplant about 6 weeks ago.

I hadn’t seen Greg since his transplant.  He looked so healthy and happy.  His wife also had a huge smile on her face.  Damon and Greg met each other at a press conference on July 1.  Now, a few months later, they actually recognized each other.   I hope organ donors and their families truly understand what an incredible difference their act of love and kindness mean to the recipient and their families.

I hung out at the St. George Marathon on October 3.  I didn’t run; I cheered for Cory Reese and the other eight members of Team Run Life who were among the 5,618 people who completed the entire 26.2 miles.  Cory ran for an entire 4 hours and 25 minutes, enduring cramped legs and great pain, and he claims to be excited for his next marathon!!

I was one of the D.O.M.E. virtual marathoners who did my own virtual 26.2.  Unlike Cory, I did not experience leg cramps or great pain, but I still contributed to a great cause; told others about the importance of organ donation, and I even appeared on our training page (please note, no one was required to sweat during training). 

Cheering for Cory and Team Run Life was harder than you might think.  Did you know that people who have just run 26 miles all look about the same and I had only met most of the team members once.  Then I heard the woman next to me yell, “There’s Cory.  Come on, Cory.  Keep it up.”

Out of over 5,600 people, could there be more than one Cory running this marathon?  I looked and sure enough it was Cory Reese.  I grabbed my daughter’s camera and snapped a picture while cheering him on.  I asked the woman if she knew anyone else on Team Run Life.  She knew Shane and Karrie and promised to cheer loudly as they came in.  Thanks to a cheering stranger, I was able to get pictures of Shane and Karrie also. 

Now I can kick back and listen to my “Road of Hope” CD while I gear up for my next virtual race!

There are a lot of misconceptions surrounding organ donation.  We try our best to replace these with the truth, but after reading something online the other day, I began to wonder if we do things, unintentionally of course, to fuel these rumors. 

Recently five Utah hospitals received the Medal of Honor from the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services.  Of these five hospitals, Utah Valley Regional Medical Center (UVRMC) was one of only 30 in the United States to receive the Gold award for how well they improved donation rates.  Receiving this award actually reflects an extremely high standard of care and great compassion for their patient’s families, but not everyone understands that!

I read the comments following an article about this award and one person wrote, “Does this mean I need to avoid UVRMC or I might become an organ donor by accident? Kidding.”  Though this individual was kidding, they touched on a common fear.

Most people don’t understand how rare it is to become a donor.  A person has to die in a hospital, on a ventilator, typically of some type of head injury.  The care that a patient receives in an effort to save their lives is the same care that is required for someone to become an organ donor.  The physician’s first concern is to make every effort to save the life of their patient.  It is those very efforts that make it possible to recover organs if those life saving measures are not effective.  You do not have to avoid UVRMC or any other hospital in Utah for fear of becoming an organ donor on “accident”.  Your decision to donate will only apply after every effort has been made to save your life.

Wow.  Our first blog! This is so cool!  The reason we have started this blog is A LOT of people  still have questions about organ, eye and tissue donation that keep them from signing up to be donors and we want to be able to answer them.

With that thought in mind, if you have questions, or if you know people that would like to sign up on the donor registry, but have a question or two, or three, or four, have them call or write us. We can be contacted at 1-866-YES-UTAH (937-8824), or email at info@yesutah.org, or write us here.

Thanks for all of your support! Now that we are getting into the 21^st Century, we can make Utah #1 in the country for saving lives through organ, eye, and tissue donation.

One other thought.  As we approach the holidays, blood donation typically starts to drop off.  Please think about being a blood donor too. We typically don’t think of blood as life-saving, but it is.