DonateLife week: no better time to register

Are you an organ donor? If you are, do your loved ones know?

No one likes to think about their death, it is hard-wired into humans to focus on life. But, unpleasant as it may be, preparing for the inevitable could end up saving a life. 

There are about 1400 people across Australia waiting for a life-saving transplant. Just one person’s organs and tissue can be used to save or improve the lives of at least 10 of those people.

But, only one in three Australians are registered organ donors. 

Are you one of those people who wants to be an organ donor, has every intention of being an organ donor, but has just never quite got around to registering?

Well now is the time. If you want to be an organ donor you need to register - register.donatelife.gov.au/decide

But even more than that, you need to have the conversation with your loved ones.

They’re the ones who need to give the final okay. 

If you haven’t sat down with your family and told them your wishes they can prevent your organs and tissues being donated. 

This most likely isn’t out of shock, but because they simply didn’t know. And at a stressful time when they are coping with the grief of losing a loved one it was one decision too much.

Imagine if you, or your husband or wife, your mother, your child’s life depended on the generosity of someone you never met to save your life. 

If you knew your life could be saved by science, if only someone remembered to register and had that conversation with their family. 

What would organ donation mean to you then?

This is the case for the 1400 people waiting on a transplant, hoping it comes before it is too late. 

So take this week as a reminder, ring up your parents, sit down with your spouse and tell them your wishes.

Taking the time to register and having the conversation could be the difference between life and death for someone else. 

After 13 years of living with kidney disease, Gravelly Beach father-of-two Michael Lockyer could barely hold his hands above his head.

He was slowly deteriorating, had little energy, and spent most of the time sleeping.

Mr Lockyer was diagnosed after moving to Tasmania with his wife, Ness, in 2003.

“They gave me 12 months without dialysis and I managed to last 13-and-a-bit years just by change of diet and trying to keep as fit as possible,” he said.

But it still took its toll on his health and lifestyle, and his family knew he needed a transplant.

Mr Lockyer’s mother initially put her hand up to be a donor. However, it wouldn’t have left her with enough kidney function.

So his wife started to look into her compatibility. Read more

There is little doubt their grief is still raw but the Port Stephens parents of the late track rider Riharna Thomson say her decision to be an organ donor has helped them to cope with their loss.

"She was a special girl," her devastated father Ian said this week, speaking publicly for the first time about the death of his beloved daughter.

Riharna died at Canberra Hospital on March 3 after falling from her favourite horse during trackwork on February 28 at Thoroughbred Park ahead of the national capital's premier race day, the Black Opal Stakes.

The 22-year-old donated her kidneys, pancreas, liver, lungs and a heart valve. The organs are thought to have helped between six and eight people. Read more

As the drugs slowly wore off post-surgery in the Royal Children’s Hospital, Zoe Smith pointed at her eyes, and then to the crisp white bed sheet.

But her parents didn’t quite get the message, so she attempted to write instead.

‘Are my eyes white?’ was the question Neil Smith deciphered from the scribble.

And he was pleased to tell his teenage daughter – who now had a functioning liver and a whole new life ahead of her – that they were.

“I got really self-conscious by the end of it because my eyes were really yellow, almost green,” Zoe says, back in her Corowa home.

Diagnosed with biliary atresia, a rare disease causing bile to be trapped inside the liver and eventually organ failure, Zoe’s eyes and skin have always been discoloured.

But things got worse last year, after a family trip to Bali. Read more