Visit the Amador Siblings website

Thank you all who are related with this donation process.

http://www.firstgiving.com/hallietwomey

6 years ago Saturday, my Dad received a new heart. He lived in a Boston hospital for 98 days basically waiting to get a new heart or to die. It was that cut and dry. The doctor’s were brutally honest….at 59, he would die without a transplant. While there, we watched as several of his floormates died before a heart became available. It was hard. Very hard. Yet it happens more time each day than I care to think about.

Since that day (June 13th, 2003) I have passionately wanted to do SOMETHING, ANYTHING to help raise awareness about organ donation. I always believed that if my Dad’s story helped change even one person’s mind, then I would be a very happy daughter.

But you know what? I want to do more. I want to help in a BIG WAY.

I’ve been debating how one thankful daughter can make a difference, How I can help spread the word. How I can best honor not only my Dad but the memory of the donor as well.

What I know is that more eduaction is needed and that more people need to learn why organ donation is so very important. What I’ve found is that for some people, until they are faced with a loved one (or themself) needing an organ, they don’t necessarily think about it. I wish that NO ONE ever had to face the excruciating choice involved in donating their loved ones organs, but I know that will never happen. If my Dad’s donor family had NOT agreed to donate their son’s heart, my Dad would not be here today.

What I decided to do is to hold a raffle in August to raise as much money as I possibly can. All the money I raise will be turned over to UNOS, an organization that works dilligently to raise organ donation awareness.

Hope you and your readers might hop over and check it out. There will be 25 amazing prize packages raffled off with items totaling thousands of dollars.

Thanks in advance for your time,
Hallie

“We must to do what we can to increase live organ
donation.”

For whom? Certainly not the donor.

“Live organ donors are a very low health care risk. ”

Do they know something we don’t? Last time I checked, there was no registry for living donors, and according to a 2006 assessment of all existing research studies, the data we do have is inadequate on all fronts.

Bottom line: we have no idea how much of a risk living donors are in by donating. I’m thinking the over 100 living kidney donors that UNOS/OPTN knows have been diagnosed with end-stage renal disease would disagree with the ‘low risk’ statement thoroughly.

Feel free to let your readers know about this blog resource and to encourage similar story and picture submissions.
Many thanks,
Glenn, Heart Transplant Recipient, 1995