|
|
|
WHAT'S NEW
|
 |
|
|
|
|
|
Maya's gifts -- An intimate look at organ donation
|
|
|
While grieving the loss of her daughter, a woman finds comfort in the gifts of life that exist through organ donations.
|
|
|
By Eleanor Vincent
|
|
|
|
|
Several weeks have passed since we buried Maya. My primary occupation, other than grieving, is writing acknowledgments for donations to a scholarship fund for young actors that I set up in her memory. Sitting at the dining room table bent over my task, I hear the mail truck pull up in the lane. When the mail carrier's key scrapes in the lock and the metal boxes clank open, I hurry out to pick up my mail.
Among the stack of bills and magazines I pull from the mailbox is a business envelope from the California Transplant Donor Network. The official return address sends a surge of adrenaline through my body. I walk briskly up to my patio and enter the apartment, tearing open the flap in one motion. I am holding a letter from the young nurse who was our transplant coordinator.
I had treated Shelley badly during the request process; yet she accepted the brunt of my shock and anger with professionalism. Now in spare prose she sets forth the miracles that resulted from donating Maya's organs. I sit down at the dining room table, holding the letter in my hand.
The recipients could be anyone
One kidney, triple bagged in a special solution and placed in an organ preservation box, was flown to a 47-year-old New England man who had been waiting for several years. The second kidney was given to a young woman in Boston who is only two years older than Maya. The letter says she is 21 years old and has chronic kidney disease. Reading the words, I understand that the recipients could be anyone, of any age, anywhere.
"John, come look at this letter. I can't believe this." My voice rises with hopeful energy, something that feels very foreign after weeks of grieving. John [my partner] joins me at the table and stands behind me, reading over my shoulder.
Maya's heart
I burst into tears when I reach the paragraph about Maya's heart. I heard it beating when I laid my head on her chest in the hospital to say goodbye; its steady drumming was the last sound of her I would ever hear, the last trace. Shelley's words tell me that this vital part of my daughter is still alive.
"Her heart was recovered by a team from the University of California San Francisco (UCSF). The recipient is a 54-year-old man originally from Chile." The square black letters on the page blur. I reach up and grasp John's hand and continue reading. The letter says the heart recipient lives in Burlingame, Calif. "He is married and has two children and works as an import-export specialist."
The entire story seems surreal
But that is not all. Maya's tissue and bone is being processed and placed for transplant and will potentially help dozens of people through bone grafts, middle-ear grafts to help restore hearing, tendons and ligaments to restore mobility, and cartilage that can be used for reconstruction following disfiguring injuries. Both of her corneas were placed for transplant locally; one has gone to a 39-year-old woman from San Francisco, the other to a 66-year-old man from Alameda, Calif., restoring their sight.
Suddenly, the entire story seems surreal. I stare at the blocky paragraphs on the page, then gaze out the window. My daughter's body was a cornucopia. Six transplant operations have resulted from her death. Three children still have their parents.
A young woman will be able to finish college. Wives and husbands continue to wake up side by side each morning. People can see. They can go on with life.
Page 1 of 3
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
 more articles |
|
|
|
|
|
|
