GUEST VIEWPOINT: Registering as an organ donor might save lives of others

The Register Guard | BY TERI KOHLEY
The Pacific Northwest Transplant Bank estimates that more than 7,500 Americans donate to organ banks each year. Yet every year thousands of people languish on organ transplant waiting lists (115,058 currently), hoping against the odds that tomorrow will be their lucky day. Or the next day. Or the next. And on average, 18 of these people will die every day while awaiting their transplant.

The problem with such numbers is that they often remain just that — mere numbers on a page, with no real emotional connection to our everyday lives. Until they hit close to home and take on a human face.

Five years ago, those numbers became all too real for my family. My sister, Renee Dale, started dialysis and has since become one of those people added to Oregon Health & Science University’s active waiting list, needing a dual kidney and pancreas transplant to save her life. We now stay close to home and wait for that life-saving call every day.

Now in her 40s, my sister was diagnosed with Type-1 diabetes at the time of her 11th birthday, becoming one of the more than 13,000 new cases that are diagnosed every year. Again, more numbers that have become part of my family’s daily reality.

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{Register to be an organ,eye and tissue donor. To learn how, www.donatelife.net or www.organdonor.gov}