April is National Donate Life Month, which has now been marked for over the past 30 years. Gift of Hope Organ and Tissue Donor Network Hospital Relations Director Michelle Reef says it’s important to remember how many of ours or a loved one’s organs can enrich the life of someone else. This of course can mean our hearts, our eyes, or even portions of our skin.
AUDIO: The gifts of eight lives can be healed through organ donation. And more than 25 ways are skin grafts; or of course as you mentioned, cornea is an eye donation. Hearts might be used for heart disease or congenital heart defects. Liver for cirrhosis, or commonly the pancreas such as for someone suffering from Type 1 Diabetes. Skin is used for burn victims, for surgical wounds, and also to prevent infection.
And even though the routine of “just sign the back of your driver’s license” is long gone, you can still sign up at the Secretary of State’s office. When you go in to renew your driver’s license, they won’t just ask you if you’d like to register to vote, but also if you’d like to be registered as an organ donor. And you can also sign up by going to www.giftofhope.org.
