One of the most important decisions you can make is to become an organ donor or tissue donor. Your personal decision and choice will make a difference in others lives. Organ donors dead or alive are heroes; people remembered fro doing great, marvelous and selfless acts.
Thousands of successful organ/tissue donations and transplants take place each year. Basically there are two kinds. One is the non-living donations, which are the organs and tissues donated by individuals at the time of the death. One donor can benefit as many as fifty people. The second kind is the living donations, which are the organs and tissues donated from living people, usually a blood relative of the recipient. For a successful transplant, there must be minimal differences between the antigens of the recipient and the donor. (Immunology 6) .
Becoming a donor is giving life again. A donor person can in a sense continue to live. Medication and medical advances have resulted in transplant surgeries that are very successful, in fact a 95% .
survival rate. Because of the generosity of donors and their families, thousands of other families across the world now have the opportunity to enjoy their loved one for years to come. For example, "the story of Sally Passey, her life hung in the balance as she waited desperately in need of a liver transplant. At only twenty four Sally had been ill from the age of six. All she could do was wait for an unknown heartbroken family to agree to organ donation at their time of overwhelming grief. Sally is one of the lucky ones; she did receive a new liver, and now enjoys a hectic life." (Clinical Symposia 16) Many donor families draw comfort from knowing that something positive resulted from their extreme loss.
Most people who receive a new organ or tissue go on to live normal lives, free from pain and disability.