By CHRISTINA L. MOSS
Clarion News writer
Clarion Hospital joined with the Center for Organ Recovery and Education to host a ceremonial flag raising service April 2 to raise awareness about organ, tissue and cornea donations and to inspire everyone to become an organ donor.
Hospitals across the United States fly the Donate Life flag in April to show their support of donation, to serve as a display of unity, remembrance and hope, and to honor those touched by donation and transplantation.
“Our close collaboration with CORE sets the gift of life in motion,” said Clarion Hospital CEO Steven Davis. “Together we have fostered a greater understanding of donation and transplantation in this community and created a culture of donation here in our own hospital. Ultimately, that will mean more lives saved and more people healed.”
On April 16 the hospital will be hosting a Celebration of Life which will offer education and information on eye and tissue donation as well as information on how to become a donor.
Regina Graziano, professional services liaison with CORE covering Clarion Hospital stated, “Last year through the generosity of donors within your hospital, donors were able to provide the gift of sight through 10 cornea transplants and enhance the lives of 450 others through tissue transplantation.”
Nationally, close to 114,000 people are waiting for an organ transplant. In Pennsylvania, there are more than 8,000 people on the waiting list.
Ron Flick has given the gift of life through kidney donation. His older brother was diagnosed with renal disease 47 years ago. Six family members were tested and found that Flick was the best match.
His brother was able to live for 10 years with a normal unrestricted life before being diagnosed with leukemia.
“Anti-rejection medicine at that time was rudimentary and lowered his resistance which reduced his ability to reject everything but he had 10 years to watch his daughter grow up and do things with his family. Ten years to enjoy meals and enjoy everything the rest of us normally just assume everybody does,” said Flick. “Not only are we asking people to sign donor cards and become organ donors, we’re also asking people to consider living donations because it does work.”
Living donations happen when the donor organs are at their best instead of when the organs have been through immense stress so living donations are more successful than normal organ donation.
Craig Beary has lived his entire life in Clarion. His mother was a nurse at Clarion Hospital so Beary grew up knowing the hospital and remembers running the halls when he was just five years old.
In 2006 he was diagnosed with aplastic anemia. To correct the disorder, doctors performed a stem cell transplant in 2008 at Shadyside hospital in Pittsburgh.
The transplant cured the aplastic anemia but a side effect was having severe rejections in his body. The condition started in his eyes, then moved to his mouth and slowly spread into his lungs.
It was known he would need a lung transplant but through evaluation it was determined he was too well for the transplant even though he experienced many breathing issues and needed oxygen until 2016 when he was deemed bad enough and the transplant was imminent.
“Since then I returned to work. My life before transplantation, I was on oxygen, I could barely walk up 10 steps without being literally out of breath. I didn’t do too much like I had done before I became sick, where now I don’t have oxygen; I actually have good labs and am able to do things. I go to the YMCA all the time. Since I got my transplant I’ve returned to what I call a normal life,” said Beary. “In my circumstance, where Ron is a living donor, my donor didn’t survive. In January of last year I actually got a letter in the mail from my donor family that was written by the mother of the gentleman who was the organ donor. He had donated five organs to save five different people and I was the one that received his lungs.”
One person can save up to eight lives through organ donation of the heart, two lungs, liver, pancreas, two kidneys and the intestines.
At least 20 people will die each day without receiving the transplant they desperately need. Every 10 minutes a new person is added to the transplant waiting list.
Approximately 11,000 people die annually who are considered medically suitable to donate organs, tissue and corneas, yet only a fraction donate. Anyone can be a potential donor regardless of age, race or medical history.
If you would like to become a registered donor, visit www.core.org/register.