From The Mind Of Wag...

Someone said yes. Maybe that person registered as an organ donor years earlier. Maybe a family is now honoring the decision their loved one made. Maybe a family, in the middle of an unimaginable loss, has been asked to consider donation. However that moment arrives, we often talk about the yes as though it is the end of the story. It isn’t. In many ways, it is the beginning of an extraordinary chain of events. Because a decision to donate does not mean doctors simply remove an organ, find someone who needs it and perform a transplant. What happens between donation becoming possible and another person receiving an organ involves evaluation, coordination, matching, medical judgment, transportation and teams of people working within very real time constraints. UNOS First, Donation Has to Be Possible Not everyone who wants to donate will ultimately be able to donate organs. Medical professionals evaluate a potential donor to determine whether organ donation is medically possible and which...

Do the words we never say disappear or do we carry them with us? The letter had been in the drawer for twenty-seven years. He found it while looking for a passport. That was the irritating part. He wasn’t sorting through old photographs or cleaning out boxes in the attic. He wasn’t searching for memories. He needed his passport. Instead, beneath expired warranties, instruction manuals for appliances they no longer owned and a handful of birthday cards his wife apparently couldn’t bring herself to throw away, he found an envelope. His handwriting was on the front. Dad. Nothing else. No address. No stamp. Just one word. He knew what it was before he opened it. He sat down on the edge of the bed. For a while, he simply held it. His father had been dead for nineteen years. The letter was older than that. Twenty-seven years earlier, they had argued. He couldn’t remember exactly what started it anymore. Something about work. Or money. Or one of those decisions a grown son believes is entirel...

It was her fiftieth birthday. As he had done so many mornings before, her husband brought her breakfast in bed. He had prepared everything himself and arranged it carefully on the tray. But when she looked at the toast, her heart sank. Once again, he had given her the heel of the loaf. The hard, crust-covered piece she had never liked. Of all the days, she had hoped this one might be different. She had hoped that after all their years together, he might finally notice. That on her fiftieth birthday, he might give her one of the soft slices from the middle instead of keeping it for himself. Her disappointment finally broke through. “Why do you always give me the heel?” Her husband looked surprised. Then he answered: “Because it’s my favorite part.” All those years, she had believed he was giving her the piece no one wanted. All those years, he believed he was giving her the best. What she experienced as thoughtlessness had been intended as love. I have always heard the story told that w...

We use phrases like: Donor heart. Donor kidney. Donor lungs. They’re useful words. They help doctors, transplant teams, recipients and families talk about something incredibly complex. But there’s something those words can unintentionally do. They can turn a person into an organ. Before there was a donor heart, there was a person. Someone had a name. Someone had people they loved—and people who loved them. They had favorite foods. Songs they knew every word to. Inside jokes. Bad habits. Plans for next weekend. People they expected to see again. They had a life that mattered completely apart from what eventually happened to their organs. Before “Donor” Came a Life We often tell organ donation stories from the recipient’s side. Someone was dying. An organ became available. A transplant happened. A life was saved. That story is true. But it isn’t the whole story. Because while one family was receiving the news they desperately hoped for, another family was experiencing something entirely ...

How far do we have to travel before we realize what we were looking for was already home? The gate still stuck. He smiled when he discovered that. Forty-three years had passed since he had last pushed it open, but apparently no one had ever bothered to fix the bottom hinge. He lifted slightly as he pushed, just as his father had taught him when he was a boy. Up, then over. The gate scraped across the concrete and swung open. Some things, apparently, remembered you too. He stood there for a moment with one hand resting on the weathered wood. The house beyond it wasn’t his anymore. It hadn’t been for decades. A young couple owned it now. They had bought it from the family who bought it from the family his parents had sold it to when they moved away. He knew none of them. But when he had knocked on the front door and explained that he grew up there, the woman who answered had smiled. “Would you like to see the backyard?” He almost said no. He wasn’t entirely sure why he had stopped in the...

What changes when we stop trying to outrun ourselves? He always chose the aisle. Not because he was afraid of flying or needed the extra room. He chose it because the aisle made leaving easier. After years of traveling for work, he had developed a system. Laptop out before takeoff. Earbuds in. Inbox open the moment the Wi-Fi connected. By the time the wheels touched down, he could have half a day’s work behind him. Airports no longer felt like places. They were transitions. Houston. Atlanta. Chicago. Denver. Gate numbers. Boarding groups. Rental cars. Hotel rooms. He knew which airports had decent coffee, which security lines moved fastest and exactly how late he could arrive at the gate without hearing his name over the speaker. He was good at traveling. Mostly because he had learned how to make it disappear. So, when he booked the early flight home that Thursday morning, he chose the aisle. At least, he thought he had. The gate agent looked at his boarding pass, then at her screen. “...

  What does it mean to keep living when living has always included someone else? Every morning, he made two cups of coffee. He had done it for so many years that he barely thought about it anymore. His cup went on one side of the table. Hers went on the other. Even after she died. The first morning, perhaps it made sense. Grief doesn’t immediately learn new routines. The body keeps doing what love taught it to do. Reach for two cups. Pour twice. Set one beside the chair where she had always sat. But then there was another morning. And another. Two cups. Two places. One empty chair. Sometimes he sat there until both cups were cold. Friends worried about him. His children called more often. Everyone seemed to offer some version of the same advice. You’ve got to keep living. He knew they were right. He just didn’t know what that meant. Because for most of his adult life, living had included her. Living was hearing her slippers cross the kitchen floor. It was knowing how much cream she...

  What keys do we keep carrying long after the doors they opened are gone? For twenty years, the key had opened nothing. And for twenty years, he had carried it anyway. It hung from the same ring as the keys to his house, his truck and the small padlock on the shed. Old brass. Worn smooth around the edges. There had been a time when he reached for it several times a day without thinking. The front entrance. The east hallway. The gymnasium. His office. For thirty-two years, he had been a school principal. And that key had opened nearly every door in the building. He knew the school before it was awake. The sound of the custodian’s cart rolling through an empty hallway. The smell of freshly waxed floors in August. The strange silence after the last bus pulled away. He had handed out diplomas. Broken up fights. Sat with frightened first-year teachers. Called parents with good news and terrible news. For thirty-two years, people had called him Principal Harris. Then one Friday afternoo...

  There may be no phone call a person waiting for a transplant wants more than this one: “We may have an organ for you.” After days, weeks, months — or sometimes years — of waiting, imagine hearing those words. This might be it. The waiting is finally be over... Except there’s something many people outside the transplant world don’t realize: The call doesn’t always mean you’re getting the transplant. Sometimes it means there is a potential organ. There are still things that have to happen. The transplant team has to evaluate the available organ. Medical information has to be reviewed. Compatibility and other factors have to be considered. The recipient has to be ready for surgery. And sometimes, somewhere during that process, the answer changes. Not this one. From the Call to the Transplant Think about the emotional distance between: “We may have an organ for you.” and “We’re not going to proceed.” You may have told your family. You may have rushed to the hospital. You may have st...

Imagine this. A donor heart becomes available. Somewhere, several people desperately need a heart transplant. Each of them has a story. Each has people who love them. Each wants more time. So... Who gets the heart? And maybe the bigger question: Who decides? Before my own transplant, I certainly didn't understand everything happening behind the scenes. I knew there was a waiting list. I knew donated organs had to be matched with recipients. But I didn't fully understand how a particular heart ultimately makes its way to a particular person. And I think that's true for a lot of us. Because from the outside, it's easy to imagine someone somewhere simply making a decision: Give it to this person. That's not how it works. A Doctor Doesn't Simply Pick Someone Organ allocation uses a structured system designed to match donated organs with appropriate transplant candidates. For a heart, several factors can matter. Medical urgency. Blood type and other compatibility con...

  A railroad bridge operator brought his eight-year-old son to work. His name was John Griffith. His son’s name was Greg. The year was 1937. John operated a massive drawbridge spanning the Mississippi River. When ships needed to pass, he raised the bridge. When trains approached, he lowered it back into place. That afternoon, John raised the bridge and stepped away to eat lunch with his son. Then he heard it. The whistle of the Memphis Express. Four hundred passengers were racing toward an open bridge. John ran to the control room and reached for the lever. But before lowering the bridge, he looked into the enormous gearbox beneath him. Greg had fallen into the gears. John had only seconds to decide. He could leave the bridge open and allow the train to plunge into the river. Or he could pull the lever, close the bridge and crush his son. John buried his face in his arm and pulled the lever. The bridge descended. The train crossed safely. Through tear-filled eyes, John watched the ...

“I’m probably too old to be an organ donor.” Or maybe: “My health isn’t great. They wouldn’t be able to use anything anyway.” Those thoughts sound reasonable. But here’s something important to understand: That decision may not be yours to make. Age does not automatically disqualify someone from organ donation. Neither does having a medical history. Whether organs or tissues can actually be donated depends on many factors. Potential donors are evaluated individually by medical professionals when the time comes. So you don’t need to look at your age, your health history or the medications you take and decide: “Nobody could use anything from me.” Maybe they couldn’t. But maybe they could. And that’s the larger educational point. Sometimes what prevents a person from becoming an organ donor isn’t opposition to donation. It’s an assumption. I’m too old. I’m not healthy enough. They wouldn’t be able to use anything. And without ever asking, someone who might have been willing to donate has a...