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  • Organ Donation Awareness: The Patient’s Role

    Posted by Charlene Marshall on September 25, 2019 at 8:09 pm

    Sending everyone a quick hello from the airport as I depart for my long-awaited trip to Hawaii!

    I hadn’t planned on making this my forum topic for today, however, I just had an interesting conversation with the airline check-in assistant and it left me thinking about our role (the patient) in raising awareness for organ donation and transplantation.

    After being diagnosed with idiopathic pulmonary fibrosis (IPF) in 2016, my greatest fear was that this lung disease would prohibit my ability to travel. I’ve grown accustomed to travelling with my portable oxygen concentrator (POC) and when flying with specific airlines, I never run into trouble carrying and using it onboard the aircraft. While checking in this morning, it was obvious to me that the agent hadn’t experienced checking in a POC before. She was asking a lot of questions, to which I was able to direct her on what she needed to do to both “inspect and approve” my oxygen concentrator. After it was all done, she offered to carry my checked bags to the baggage drop, which I appreciated and gladly accepted. As we were walking, she became curious, asking lots of questions about my use of supplemental oxygen as a young adult.

    When we got to the topic of lung transplantation being the only “cure” for IPF, she stated that she didn’t even know that as possible! I had to pick my jaw up off the floor: was it possible that she’d never heard of organ donation and how it can save the life of someone in need?

    It got me thinking about what my responsibility is as a patient who will rely on organ donation to survive this disease. If this airport attendant hadn’t heard of a lung transplant, she mustn’t be a donor or know anyone who is. We then circled into a long conversation about how this selfless gift will ultimately help me and has helped many others that I know and love.

    What do you think our responsibility is as patients, to openly discuss and talk about organ donation? 

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