Imagine that a family member has fallen seriously ill. They have a grave liver disease, and the doctors tell them the only way to truly survive is to have a liver transplant. When they hear this they instantly think of all that they will miss and all the heartache it would cause; not watching their daughter grow up, their spouse having to bury them, their parents losing their youngest child, the list goes on. Having the transplant would change their life forever. Due to needing a deceased donor for a liver and the lack of donors, they are on the transplant list for a year and a half. With each passing day, their condition becomes worse and worse. Finally one summer day, they receive the call that a liver has become available for them. They arrive at the hospital as soon as they hear the news and a few days later, they have a new liver. They are no longer in danger of dying because someone took the time to become an organ donor. Donating an organ can help to save the life of a relative or complete stranger. Becoming an organ donor is something that everyone should do.
Today there are approximately 121,272 people who are waiting for a transplant and every ten minutes another person is added to that list (Need is Real, n.d.). By the time you finish reading and grading this paper at least two people will have been added to the ever-growing list. That does not seem like a lot when you compare it to the population of our country. The family of the patient waiting for the organ is also affected just as much as the patient themselves, and this brings the number of the population and the number of people affected closer together. The young and the old, the rich and the poor – organ transplants do not have limits on the type of people who can receive organs. In one day, all across the United States, there are roughly seventy-nine transplants that go according to plan (Need is Real, n.d.). On the other hand, twenty-two people die on any given day, due to not receiving an organ.
