...the mind finds it indecent to object. - Milan Kundera
I'm that idiot that will post ridiculous holiday greetings to your Facebook timeline on your birthday. If today was your birthday, for example, I'd probably wish you a "Happy Oregon Statehood Day!" or "Happy Ferris Wheel Day!" Valentine's Day isn't obscure enough to be funny...then again, maybe 30% of the recipients find this irreverence even remotely humorous. Reactions range from anticipation to confusion...and neither really discourage me from continuing this practice, although it's growing more and more difficult to not be redundant...it's not like new holidays sprout up every year.
If I wanted to post a holiday greeting with an ulterior motive, though, I'd wish everyone a Happy National Organ Donor Day. For people like my mother, I'd wager that she celebrates the occasion every damn day.
My mom's life reads like a Shakespearean tragedy, minus the poison and sword fighting (mostly). She grew up with chronic asthma, and spent long periods of her adulthood in hospitals with various ailments and organ removals (evidently gallbladders are not imperative organs for survival). In her 40s she was (mis)diagnosed with lupus, and a few years later was (correctly) diagnosed with multiple sclerosis, the effects of which eventually elongated her heart chambers, rendering them useless without a pacemaker (which, in turn, was also rendered useless as the condition progressed).
Of course, if you aren't related to Mom you would not guess that she was beset with so many maladies. In her healthier days she ran on high octane, waking up early enough to make breakfast for me and Dad, seeing us off to school and work (respectively), going about her day as a PTA member or school board president or guidance counselor and finishing up her evening in school to become a principal. She was hired as an elementary school principal at the dawn of her heart problems and just replaced school with work, often out of the house for 14+ hours a day.
Her heart condition eventually urged an early retirement, and she still tried to consume as much free time as possible. Her and Dad took vacations constantly, even if they often ended with trips to the hospital to recover (try telling a perpetual motion machine to "take it easy"). They both visited me in Houston for weeks at a time, often driving there so they could take post-visitation road trips to New Orleans or Bradenton. She took the last fraction of her heart and used it more than most of us ever could.
Near the end, she was confined to a hospital room at Allegheny General, her doctors implying that she would not likely be leaving that room unless it was with a new heart. Dad and I, who have witnessed all of her health problems first-hand, were still unnerved at seeing her trapped in a bed, like a caged animal, even if that animal was struggling to breathe and stay awake.
Dad called me the day before Mom's birthday, in September of 2007. It was 11:00 at night, which is the time of day where phone calls from Dad either mean good news or bad news...I was sure he wasn't calling to just shoot the breeze. And his words, in hindsight, were absolutely accurate but still kind of surreal to hear: "they found a heart for your mom." They found one? Just lying on the street, or in a dumpster?
I don't remember much about that night. I can't even remember if I saw Mom before she went under the knife. I remember trying to sleep in the waiting room, and succeeding for a few hours, and Dad waking me up to tell me that it was a success, and then eating lunch with my fiance, my father, my grandmother, and my aunt at this hole-in-the-wall near the hospital (good caesar salad). But I do remember seeing Mom for the first time with a new heart in her chest, and seeing her eyes full of that same passion and fire that I haven't seen for years. She looked like she could jump out of bed and do cartwheels, and I'm sure if she wasn't tethered by IVs and catheters she would've done just that.
Mom's still chugging along today, replacing most of her hospital stays with charity work (she founded and organizes the Empty Bowl charity for Westmoreland County, a year-long dedication that culminates in a huge event in March), tons of bridge tournaments, and keeping up with a rambunctious granddaughter to the point that she'll pass out from exhaustion well before Mom does. My parents managed a three week excursion to Europe a few years ago, and they have another cruise lined up in the spring.
Heart transplant recipients have a 90% survival rate for their first year, and 55% of them survive 10 years or more. Mom is approaching year #7, and shows no signs of slowing down...a fact that should surprise me, but it doesn't, because I know my mom.
A few months ago I made a choice to volunteer with the Center for Organ Recovery (CORE), the organization that assisted with the heart transplant from start to finish. My first volunteer event was at a wellness clinic held by a single business. I only met about 40 people that day, but I was still surprised at how many were not registered organ donors. A few of them claimed religious reasons...something I can certainly understand, but others had reasons based on hearsay, and conjecture, and false information. I'm proud to say that we added a dozen people to the donor list that day, just by debunking some myths and talking people through their confusion.
If you aren't a registered organ donor, I would ask that you check out the CORE site (specifically http://www.core.org/Misconceptions.asp), with an open mind, and reconsider. And if you do change your mind, you can print out a registration form here (http://www.core.org/donor_card.asp) and send it to me, or register online.
My mom has spent the last 20 years of her life beating the odds, but I know what her odds would have been if her new heart was inside a woman that was not a registered donor: zero.
