According to the organization Donate Life, “17 patients die each day awaiting a transplant because the organ they need is not available and currently there are more than 79,000 U.S. patients awaiting a transplant. But a single organ or tissue donor can help save the lives of as many as 50 people!”
Paula Edwards of Hot Springs knows the far-reaching effects of organ donation. Six months ago, she received a new liver and is now a living, breathing proponent of organ donation.
At age 13, Edwards received a blood transfusion after surgery to remove fistulas from her neck. A fistula is a passage between an organ and the skin. Doctors at the time felt that removal of these openings was the treatment of choice. “I lost a lot of blood,” she said, and the resulting transfusion is what she and her family believes caused the Hepatitis C with which she was diagnosed in 1992.
Asymptomatic until 2009, Edwards, now 55, experienced an episode of vomiting blood, which prompted treatment that stabilized her health until August of 2011. Unable to rouse her out of bed one morning, her husband, Mike “wrapped me in a blanket, carried me to the car, and took me to the emergency room,” she said, although she remembers nothing about the episode that transformed her future
Read more: http://rapidcityjournal.com/news/local/communities/hot-springs/organ-donation-saves-local-woman-s-life/article_add2f280-92e1-11e1-aa86-0019bb2963f4.html#ixzz1tfSB7B00
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