Life Goes On
Organ and Tissue Donor Awareness Week April 21 to 27

Few collaborations among the Texas Medical Center transplant centers are as strong as the one that unites their representatives at least once each quarter – organ and tissue donation. LifeGift, the organ procurement organization which serves Harris and 108 other Texas counties, partners with these centers – Memorial Hermann Hospital and Memorial Hermann Children’s Hospital, The Methodist Hospital, St. Luke’s Episcopal Hospital, and Texas Children’s Hospital – to review processes and determine ways to increase the number of organs and tissue available to the individuals who wait. The city’s two Level-1 trauma centers – Memorial Hermann Hospital and Ben Taub General Hospital – also play a key role in this endeavor.

Why is this important? Because close to 1,600 southeast Texans sit on the transplant list – each awaiting a phone call notifying them a kidney, heart, liver, pancreas, lung, intestines or a combination of organs is available. Close to 80,000 are on the list nationwide, and the number grows each year. Finally, close to 5,000 Americans will die this year waiting.

Thanks to the collaboration between LifeGift and the transplant centers, there are hundreds of success stories each year. Of course, none of these stories would have been possible without family members making a courageous decision to donate their loved one’s organs. And as LifeGift President and Chief Executive Officer Sam Holtzman exclaims, "Be an organ and tissue donor. Save lives. It’s just that simple."

Following is a recent success story from each of the transplant centers.

Memorial Hermann Children’s Hospital

Although just 5 years old, Peter Griffith Jr. has been a LifeGift volunteer almost his entire life, along with parents Peter Sr. and Anne, and younger sister Libby. A liver recipient, Peter was born with biliary atresia, a condition involving a missing bile duct which necessitated a liver transplant. Peter was put on the list at just three months of age; the Griffiths received the call notifying them a liver had been found three months later. The Lubbock residents hopped a plane to Houston and Memorial Hermann Children’s Hospital, and Peter was transplanted Nov. 5, 1996.

Strong advocates for donation, the entire family recently traveled to Fort Worth to testify about the critical shortage of organs in the state.

The Methodist Hospital

The days leading up to Sept. 1, 1998 were tough for Jan Schneider.

"Two weeks before my transplant, I started to lose hope. I called my mom in Seattle and told her I was just too tired to breathe anymore."

Just months before, Jan had been diagnosed with primary pulmonary hypertension, a condition which necessitated a double lung transplant. Two days before her 40th birthday, she received the call that two lungs were available and was transplanted the next day. The Bellaire resident now works for her surgeon, Dr. Adaani Frost, and understands first hand the frequent fear and uncertainty that transplant patients face. And although she stays very busy with work and as a wife and mother, Jan says she knows that each day is a blessing.

"Time is so precious. You’ve got to take full advantage of every day."

St. Luke’s Episcopal Hospital

When Melissa Blake gets home from a hard day as a computer specialist at the Fort Bend County Courthouse, she happily settles in with a good book. Nothing makes this self-professed homebody happier than reading a novel by a favorite author, likeTerry McMillan. And she’s grateful to be able to. After becoming severely ill with flu-like symptoms, itching, and a loss of appetite, Melissa learned she was in total liver failure because of an undiagnosed case of hepatitis B. A week later – after slipping into a coma – she received a liver transplant at St. Luke’s Episcopal Hospital. She now lives every day to the fullest and is grateful to the family who gave her a second chance at life.

Texas Children’s Hospital

Chance Wright has an appropriate name because he has been given second chances at life – twice. A two-time recipient of heart valves at Texas Children’s Hospital, the precious (and precocious) 3-year-old awakes in a racecar bed every morning, full of energy. His mother, Temple, says he’s such a live-wire that few ever guess he’s had medical problems. Chance was born with pulmonary atresia, a congenital heart defect that prevents blood flow from the right ventricle of the heart to the arteries in the lungs. An active LifeGift volunteer and donation advocate, Temple preaches the importance of organ and tissue donation to everyone she meets. And as she and Chance end each day, they say prayers for his donors – his "angels up in the sky."

For more information about donation or for a free donor card, call LifeGift at 800-633-6562 or visit http://www.lifegift.org.

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©2006 Texas Medical Center

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