Donation_For_Others

ABC7  Los Angeles | Denise Dador LOS ANGELES (KABC) -- A local man became the first in the country to receive a "breathing lung" transplant in mid November. A team of doctors and nurses at Ronald Reagan UCLA Medical Center were able to keep a set of donor lungs alive and breathing outside of the body as they're transported into the operating room. Experts said it's a medical breakthrough that could save thousands of people who die every year waiting for a transplant. A condition called pulmonary fibrosis was slowly hardening the lungs of 57-year-old Fernando Padilla of Alta Loma. He was tethered to his oxygen tank, hoping for a lung transplant. "I thought it was pneumonia, I thought it was bronchitis. Nothing ever entered my head that my lungs were messed up," Padilla said. "I couldn't do nothing. I had to have everybody doing things for me." The longtime construction worker, who helped build the very hospital he was staying in, wanted to do mo...

9News | Blair Schiff KUSA - This year's Parade of Lights runs on Friday at 8 p.m. and Saturday at 6 p.m. On hand will be several balloons, including The Gift of Life Balloon, which is sponsored by the Donor Alliance. The balloon symbolizes Colorado and Wyoming residents whose loved ones made the decision to donate organs. One of the organ recipients include Bill Fleming. He had a heart transplant in 2010, right before his 61st birthday. Fleming talked about what his experience was like leading up to the surgery. "I had what they refer to as a 'widowmaker heart attack' on Dec. 5 and unlike what most people tell you to do, I waited five days to go to the hospital. So I spent 156 days between two hospitals. On the morning of May 13, 2010, the day before my 61st birthday, I received the gift of a new heart," Fleming said. Read more

Harvard Health Publications | Anthony Komoroff On Monday, Dr. Joseph E. Murray passed away at age 93. A long-time member of the Harvard Medical School faculty, Murray pioneered the field of organ transplantation. This great achievement, for which he was honored with the Nobel Prize in Medicine in 1990, has given the gift of life to hundreds of thousands of people destined to die young. But his success did not come easily. How many people do you know who try to achieve something that no one has ever before even attempted, because it was judged to be impossible? And keep trying, and keep failing, but still keep tryingâ€"for a decade? And do so despite having each failure seriously criticized by many peers? I’ve only known one such person: Murray. He would not quit. When he returned to the Peter Bent Brigham Hospital in Boston after serving as a plastic surgeon in World War II, Murray became the surgical leader of a team whose goal was to achieve human organ transplantation, starti...

Newport Beach -Corona del Mar, CA Patch | By Nisha Gutierrez-Jaime Newport Beach retired attorney Dennis Harwood meets the wife and son of Vance "Dusty" Atkinson, whose donated heart saved Harwood's life more than 20 years ago. Debbie Atkinson hadn't heard her husband's heartbeat since his death more than 20 years ago. But today she laid her head on the chest of Dennis Harwood and heard it quietly pumping away. Harwood, 74, a retired attorney, has defied the odds of survival thanks to the strong heart of Debbie's husband, Vance "Dusty" Atkinson. Dusty was a long-haired, tattooed, Harley-Davidson-loving man who suddenly died at age 32 from a brain aneurysm in 1992. On Wednesday, Harwood and Dusty's wife and son Nick met for the very first time in an emotional encounter at Hoag Memorial Hospital Presbyterian's Heart & Vascular Institute in Newport Beach. "I never thought I would hear that again. It was so nice to hear it beat, very cal...

The Province | Elaine OConnor Revolutionary organ exchange program can involve a domino chain of up to 10 people across Canada, and it drastically reduces wait times for transplant recipients Photo: Medical staff keep a close eye on the time while working on a removed kidney, bottom left, during a transplant operation at St. Paul’s Hospital. Photograph by: Arlen Redekop , PROVINCE Your thoughts? Jacqueline Nemeth was born with two kidneys, but today she has four â€" and she has no idea who the other two came from. What she does know is that organ donations from two complete strangers have saved her life, twice. And that a national program, the Living Donor Paired Exchange, is making these anonymous gifts possible for others like her. “It’s really opened up opportunities for recipients to search through all of Canada,” Nemeth said, sitting in St. Paul’s hospital with her husband Joe just six weeks after her second transplant. “It is a leap of faith,” she said, “but...

PRWeb “Together We Can Save Lives” helps teachers and teens understand and discuss organ, eye and tissue donation. Columbus, OH (PRWEB) November 27, 2012. Working with Ohio educators and regional organ procurement organizations, the Ohio Department of Health’s Second Chance Trust Fund has developed a resource kit for teachers, “Together We Can Save Lives.” The kit, now available at DonateLifeOhio.org and the Donate Life Ohio Facebook page, offers content and activities across subjects designed to provide high school students with the knowledge needed to make informed decisions about registering as organ, eye and tissue donors. “An Ohioan dies every other day when a lifesaving transplant doesn’t come in time,” said Dr. Theodore Wymyslo, director of the Ohio Department of Health. “Even with more than five million Ohioans registered as organ, eye and tissue donors, there are still more than 3,500 awaiting transplants. This resource kit will equip teens with the facts ab...

Associated Press | Yahoo News | Mark Pratt Photo: AP FILE - This July 28, 2004 file photo shows Dr. Joseph E. Murray, who performed the world's first successful kidney transplant and won a Nobel Prize for his pioneering work, has died at age 93. Murray's death in Boston was confirmed Monday by Brigham and Women's Hospital spokesman Tom Langford. Murray shared the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine in 1990 with Dr. E. Donnall Thomas, who won for his work in bone marrow transplants. (AP Photo/Eric Miller, File) BOSTON (AP) â€" Dr. Joseph E. Murray, who performed the world's first successful kidney transplant and won a Nobel Prize for his pioneering work, has died at age 93. Murray suffered a stroke at his suburban Boston home on Thanksgiving and died at Brigham and Women's Hospital on Monday, hospital spokesman Tom Langford said. Since the first kidney transplants on identical twins, hundreds of thousands of transplants on a variety of organs have been perform...

PR Newswire Donate Life Colorado float will remind holiday revelers the importance of giving gift of life through donation DENVER, Nov. 26, 2012 /PRNewswire/ -- For the first time, Colorado and Wyoming families of organ, eye and tissue donors, transplant recipients and living donors will escort a balloon float in the annual 9News Parade of Lights in downtown Denver Friday, November 30 and Saturday, December 1. The Donate Life Colorado float, titled "Gift of Life" will be a jumbo balloon in the shape of a gift box, representing the hope made possible by organ, eye and tissue donation. Donate Life Colorado is the donor registry for the state, managed by Donor Alliance, the federally-designated, non-profit organ procurement organization and American Association of Tissue Banks (AATB) accredited tissue bank serving Colorado and most of Wyoming. "During the holidays when many Coloradans are considering ways to give back to their communities, we encourage everyone to register...

Atlanta Journal Constitution | Laura Raines Photo: Leita Cowart. Nemia Ruffes is a nurse with Piedmont Atlanta Hospital’s ICU Red Team. The hospital gives heart pillows to patients for comfort and to show them what’s happening in their hearts. More Info On Aug. 16, 2012, Dr. David Dean performed the first successful heart transplant at Piedmont Atlanta Hospital. It was a milestone for Piedmont’s heart surgery program and made the institution a tertiary cardiac care provider. While it takes a skilled surgeon to perform the delicate and risky heart transplant, it also requires a staff of highly skilled and committed nurses to bring a patient to recovery. Piedmont’s ICU Red Team is such a staff. When heart transplant patients are rolled out of the operating room, Nemia Ruffes wants to be there. Along with fellow ICU Red Team nurses, her job is to navigate patients through a complex postsurgical transition. “They could be hooked up to five or six machines: balloon pumps, a co...

The Downey Patriot | Carolyn Fagundo Photo: Carolyn Fagundo DOWNEY - This time of year I wonder how I can ever really say thank you for the gift of life. I am alive because someone gave me their loved ones two lungs. It was his lungs that saved my life 10 years ago. Twelve years ago my lungs began to fail. I was 42 years old and had been diagnosed with Ideopathic Pulmonary Fribrosis (IPF) a severe lung disease, that the only treatment to survive was a double lung transplant. When I was told what I had, and that I would not live much longer without a transplant, I was in total shock! I did not want to die - I had three teenagers that needed their Mom. Toward the end there was no longer any medicine to help. The only hope for life was a donated organ. I had no idea lung transplants existed. When my pulmonologist told me they were being performed and with much success, I was very interested and eager to be considered a candidate. At the time of my diagnosis, I probably had 1 1/2 years to...

The Oakland Press |  MEGAN SEMERAZ It was June 16, 2007, the day that changed Troy resident Lynn Parker’s life forever. Her son, Tim, who had just graduated from Troy Athens High School, was involved in a serious car accident while driving two friends home from a party when he fell asleep at the wheel â€" crossing five lanes of traffic and hitting a semi-cab. Tim was the designated driver for his friends, and about a mile away from home when he fell asleep. Lynn said her family received the phone call from Beaumont Health Center in Royal Oak at 3:22 a.m. â€" it was the call that no parent ever wanted to receive. Tim was unresponsive when his family arrived at the hospital. “He had internal injuries to his liver and he had a broken neck and broken lower vertebrae,” Lynn said. “He also was not breathing when they got to him ... as broken as he was on the inside, he only had a scratch on his lip.” Tim was the third oldest out of four children. Lynn described him as goo...

Reuters Three-time world boxing champion Hector "Macho" Camacho has died four days after he was shot in the face in a drive-by shooting. He was 50.Three-time world boxing champion Hector Camacho was pronounced dead after being taken off life support following a second heart attack early Saturday morning, Rio Piedras Medical Director Ernesto Torres said. Puerto Rico officials planned a public wake for the boxer at the Department of Sports & Recreation headquarters in San Juan, but details were pending. The former U.S. boxing champ had been declared brain dead on Thursday after he was shot on Tuesday while sitting in a car with a friend, Adrian Mojica Moreno, 49, outside a liquor store in the San Juan suburb of Bayamon, Camacho's birthplace. Two gunmen opened fire on the car, killing the driver, Mojica Moreno, and hitting Camacho in the jaw. The bullet fractured two vertebrae and lodged in his shoulder, damaging the arteries that carried blood to the brain, doctors said...

Bowling Green Daily News | Laurel Wilson Thanksgiving Day is wonderful, but not the only time of thanks for George and Eleanor Allen of Bowling Green â€" they are appreciative of life every day. George, 59, has battled a series of health problems over the past seven years, but with support from family and friends, along with his faith, he has emerged with a new zeal for life. This Thanksgiving, he reflected on his journey and the blessing of being alive. In April 2005, George was diagnosed with pulmonary fibrosis, which means he had fungus around his lungs, Eleanor said. “The only thing that would keep me alive was a transplant,” George said. For months, the Allens had to be prepared at a moment’s notice in case lungs became available for organ donation. In December 2005, they got the call that a set of lungs were a match for George. “It was really exciting,” he recalled. “I left not knowing if I’d be back. I was ready for either or.” George made it through the tra...

KVUE TV Austin | ANDY PIERROTTI It’s not because she’s dressed in her high school mascot’s colors when being interviewed. It’s not because she works up to 70 hours a week as Westwood High School’s assistant principal (its mascot is a warrior). She's a warrior because she battles something much more difficult every second of the day. "I have polycystic kidney disease. I was diagnosed at 13-years-old," Mrs. Hodge explained. Two years ago, her kidneys failed. So she put herself on a waiting list for a transplant. Every night she hooks herself to a dialysis machine to stay alive. Two bags of fluid flow through her body each night to remove toxins from her blood. Her mother died of the disease and her only living sister struggles with it too. "It's a situation where I can't go and say, 'Hi, my name is Kim. Would you give me your kidney?' I can't do that," said Hodge. A KVUE Defenders investigation uncovered that Hodge, and more than 400 ...

River Valley and Ozark | Tammy Keith EILISH PALMER / Contributing Photographer Amy Gray Light, left, who has a rare disease called von Hippel-Lindau, and Cathy May became close friends through a neighborhood social group they call Women of Wye, or WOW. After May donated a kidney to Light in August, Light said the two are more like sisters. “We’ve always been feeling like we’ve got each other’s backs because of everything we’ve gone through, but there’s a deeper communication there,” Light said. WYE MOUNTAIN â€" Amy Gray Light and Cathy May, both 54, have shared a love of red wine, a passion for animals and, now, a kidney. “If it weren’t for Cathy, I would not be here today,” Light said. “What do you say to someone who gives you life?” Light laughed, because the whole story is almost too terrible, and too good, to be true. They met 12 years ago in a fun-loving group of friends who live on the mountain in Bigelow and call themselves the Women of Wye, or WOW. ...

USA Today Photo: Former world boxing champion Hector "Macho" Camacho is taken by paramedics into a medical center in San Juan, Puerto Rico. (Photo: Sebastian Perez AP) 7:03PM EST November 21. 2012 - SAN JUAN, Puerto Rico â€" Hector "Macho" Camacho was clinging to life Wednesday after being shot in the face while sitting in a car, with doctors and his family expected to decide whether to remove the former boxing champion from life support. Doctors initially said Camacho was in critical but stable condition and was expected to survive after he was shot Tuesday night in his hometown of Bayamon. But his condition worsened overnight and his heart stopped at one point, said Dr. Ernesto Torres, director of the Centro Medico trauma center in San Juan. "He's battling minute to minute. This is the most important fight of his life," Torres told the Associated Press outside the hospital in the Puerto Rican capital. The 50-year-old Camacho was shot as he and a...

Living Kidney Donors Network | Harvey Mysel  The fear of asking someone to donate a kidney is the greatest barrier for pursuing a living kidney donor. Patients rarely need to ask directly, what they do need to do is to tell their story. Living donors say they volunteered to donate once they heard about their family member or friend’s need. Developing your Kidney Kampaign…so Your Donor Can Find You!! Two Living Kidney Donors Network FREE Webinars Dec. 3 & 4, 2012 7:00 PM Central Time Webinar Overview The Living Kidney Donors Network (LKDN) Webinar has two goals, to educate you about living donation and to help you develop a communications plan to let others know about your situation. Who Should Attend Anyone who needs, or will need a kidney transplant will benefit from the seminar. If there is someone that wants to help you spread the word about your situation, we call them Advocates, ask them to sign up for the webinar or have them attend with you. What You’ll Lear...

Huffington Post | Carmela Antolino Photo: When Seattle dad Damon Brown was in need of a kidney, he set up a Facebook page and asked his friends and family members to share the link. When he found a donor -- someone he knew but didn't consider a close friend -- she told him the good deed was for his kids, "because they deserve to have a dad around." My dad was the first man I ever loved...my hero...my strength. I was fortunate to spend a lot of time with my father when I was growing up, hanging around while he toyed with his '74 Challenger, built something new or listened to his Italian music so loudly that the whole street could hear. I am the youngest and only girl in my family. Being raised in an Italian family, I was instantly favoured by my mom and held in a special place by my dad. I learned a lot growing up -- some very tough lessons, in fact -- with a strong male influence. I grew a thick skin and one of the most important lessons I learned was that no matter w...

The Daily Republican | Cynthia Grau Photo: Rebecca Koltveit, center, had the chance to meet the sisters of the man whose cornea was given to her through organ transplant, top left, Christy Gault, Koltveit, Kathy Lewis, and bottom, Michelle Keagle. Pontiac, Ill. -- The Bauch and Lomb Run for Vision 5K fundraiser in Grant Park, Chicago, on Nov. 11, wasn’t a stereotypical race. In fact, it was the first time in the history of the Iowa Lions Eye Bank that a donor family met with the recipient of the donor’s gift. Rebecca Koltveit of Pontiac met the family of Ryan Otte, the young man from Wakefield, Neb., who died just short of his 22nd birthday in 2007. After his death in a tragic farm-related accident, his family chose to donate his organs and Koltveit received one of his corneas. Koltveit was asked to participate in the run by the Iowa Lions Eye Bank and when word spread, Otte’s sisters, Michelle, Christy and Kathy responded, saying that they wanted to run with her. The surgeon tha...

Beacon News | Denise Crosby Photo: Jovita Robles laughs as she jokes around with her husband, Mark (far left), and step-sons while she takes medication at home on Tuesday, November 20, 2012. Robles, who has battled juvenile diabetes most of her life and has had multiple surgeries in the past few years, is thankful to be healthy enough to cook a Thanksgiving meal for her family this year. | Jeff Cagle~For Sun-Times Media For the last 22 years, since suddenly dropping 15 pounds at the age of 8, Jovita Robles has been in the fight of her life against Type 1 diabetes. A doctor once told her having this juvenile diabetes is like having a full-time job that you hate but can’t get rid of. And it’s cost her plenty. Pregnant and hypoglycemic, the Aurora woman passed out while driving on New York Street downtown, and had she not hit a Hollywood Casino pillar, police said she would have gone into the Fox River. In 2010, her second daughter, born three months early because of the diabetes, liv...

Whittier Daily News | Mike Sprague Photo: Ruth Covington of Santa Fe Springs shows a rendering of the Donate Life Rose Parade float promoting organ donation at the civic center Nov. 15, 2012. (SGVN/Staff photo by Leo Jarzomb) SANTA FE SPRINGS - The late Dale Covington never liked publicity and always wanted to be the person taking care of issues behind the scenes. But on New Year's Day, his picture will seen by the world at the Rose Parade. Covington, who was a Santa Fe Springs employee for 30 years and resident of the city, will be among 72 people honored with floragraph - a portrait made of flowers and other natural materials - on the Donate Life float entry in the Rose Parade. Donate Life America is a non-profit alliance of national organizations committed to increasing organ, eye and tissue donation.The Dignity Memorial network, which includes Rose Hills Memorial Park, will honor five organ and tissue donor families with a floragraph of their loved ones as a top-tier sponsor of...

The Province | Elaine OConnor Mike Fulton became a source of inspiration when, in 2005 already blind and diabetic, he became the first HIV-positive transplant recipient VANCOUVER, BC: NOVEMBER 02, 2012 -- Dr. David Landsberg is the head of nephrology at St. Paul's Hospital in Vancouver, BC, where he is pictured Friday, November 2, 2012. (Photo by Jason Payne/ PNG) (For story by Elaine O'Connor) IMAGE FOR USE WITH ST. PAUL'S PROJECT FOR THE PROVINCE. NO OTHER USE PERMITTED. Photograph by: Jason Payne , Province The first thing you should know about groundbreaking kidney transplant patient Mike Fulton is that he is positive. The Vancouver resident made Canadian history when he became the country’s very first HIV-positive transplant patient in 2005. His kidney transplant surgery, performed at St. Paul’s hospital, has since paved the way for other positive patients, saving lives in the process. But it’s not that kind of positive that defines Fulton. Rather his optimism, ...

The Atlantic | Edward Small The "'perfect storm" for an unhealthy population in the middle of one of the world's healthiest countries -- and what one group is doing to help Photo: Colin Nipper tries to get some rest while undergoing dialysis The Australian aboriginal community Mutitjulu lies in the shadow of Uluru, one of the country's most popular tourist destinations, but it could not be more different from the polished walkways and restaurants that make up the neighboring resort town of Yulara. Its modest buildings are covered in graffiti that demonstrates a remarkably thorough understanding of English profanities. Some of the houses' walls are pocked with holes, and the sandy grounds are filled with trash ranging from empty Coke bottles to a wrapper for something called "Magic Foot Candy." While Yulara seems designed to give vacationing tourists all the services they could ask for, Mutitjulu is equipped with only the most elemental hallmarks of W...

Donate Life Rose Float A rose is a symbol of love, loss and renewal. It represents something different to every family; to some it is a symbol of hope, to others it is an expression of grief, and to still others it is an offering of gratitude. The Donate Life Dedication Garden offers all people touched by organ and tissue donation the opportunity to honor loved ones by dedicating a rose tagged with a personal message and placed in the Dedication Garden on the Donate Life Rose Parade Float. Who Can Participate? Any family or individual who has been touched by organ and tissue donation and transplantation can dedicate a rose on the Donate Life Rose Parade Float to bear the name of someone who has given, received, awaits, or died while waiting for the gift of life. Your Dedication of a Rose Includes: A rose with the name of your loved one or honoree in the Dedication Garden Your personalized dedication posted on the float website Thank you card acknowledging your dedication A personalized...

UNOS St. Louis - The OPTN/UNOS Board of Directors, at its meeting November 12 and 13, approved policies to create greater consistency in the medical and psychosocial evaluation and informed consent processes for living kidney donors and increase the level of clinical information reported on post-transplant outcomes for these donors. "Some individual transplant programs already meet the requirements we have established," said OPTN/UNOS President John Roberts, M.D. "Our goal is to ensure that all programs meet these standards." The policies specify a minimum set of required tests and procedures for the medical and psychosocial evaluation of potential living kidney donors, as well as a minimum set of requirements for informed consent for the donation procedure including the role of an independent donor advocate. Transplant programs, at their discretion, may conduct additional tests or have additional requirements for informed consent. The development of similar policie...

The State News | Caitlin Leppert Donor family member Lon Coleman speaks during the Real Heroes event on Wednesday, Nov. 14, 2012, while a picture of his brother Chase is shown in the background. Coleman’s brother’s heart and other organs were donated after his death. Julia Nagy/The State News Although Lon Coleman lost his brother to a car accident years ago, his brother’s heart beats on â€" in the body of another. When Coleman’s family agreed to donate the brother’s 20-year-old organs, he expected the gesture would be saving lives; what he didn’t see coming was the tight-knit relationship that would develop with the recipient, then 52-year-old Terry Gould. “It’s almost beyond friendship,” Coleman said. “I could say we’re all family.” Coleman and Gould have expanded their unique experience to speaking around the country about the benefits of organ donations. At 7 p.m. Wednesday, the two spoke at MSU. The pair came to MSU for the University Activities Board, ...