and I was ready to fill in the yellow form to opt in for MTERA when my mum stopped me.
*just as background info:
- once you hit 21 you're automatically under HOTA, which states tt in the event of brain death, your organs, namely the kidney, liver, heart and cornea, will be harvested and donated.
- MTERA is an optional scheme where you can choose to donate more parts e.g. lung, bones, skin, etc, for medical/treatment or research purposes.
- brain death is different from cardiac death, and there are lots of criteria which you have to fulfil before you are eligible for organ donation.
short rant about the criteria:
WTF ITS SO HARD TO QUALIFY.
must die in hospital, must be brain death.
the only situation where i can think of,
is if someone clobbers me on the head hard enough to make me suffer brain injury.
not as if i want anyone to try la, but its slightly sickening to know that i might not be of help :/
and to be honest, brain death is really a hard fact for people to accept.
cause the person still seems 'alive and breathing',
as the life support machine is still ensuring that circulation and respiration is continued.
but there will never be any chance of waking up. NEVER.
it takes great strength to switch off the machine, and even more so to allow transplant after that.
so my mom was like, panicking when she heard i was considering donating my organs after death.
literally begged me not to do it, cause she said losing me would be hard enough. :/
actually i hesitated abit after hearing her pleading. for few seconds.
but then i thought of all those people i could potentially help, so yeah sorry mum. not gonna opt out.
and she damn cute, take away the booklet cause she thought she could prevent me from joining the scheme.
actually had discussed this issue over dinner before. with relatives my mum's side.
dont know why we were talking about such a morbid topic though. :B
their points were similar;
about how difficult it would be for the family members to accept, and how the deceased would feel, etc.
because being the religious sort, they believed that the soul would still be present in the body for a period of time after death, and hence any sort of operation would cause the deceased to 'feel' pain.
but.. i'm already dead. keeping my organs with me to the grave would be like bringing my atm card along.
rather than waste it by incineration, why not donate it to the people who need it desperately?
sure i 'might' feel pain, slicing through my skin and fats (wtf),
but what is pain compared to the patients?
they have been waiting for a miracle to happen, and since i can help, i will.
i voiced out my opinion, and the whole table went silent and stared at me LOL. *paiseh*
really, i'm not trying to be brave or 伟大 but its really just how i feel.
i know how important organ donation can be, and how one can change lives.
take my own boyfriend's dad for an example.
he was diagnosed with kidney failure 15 years ago,
and he received a transplant only 3 years back.
thats close to 12 years of weekly dialysis treatments tt he had to go through.
imagine, having to be poked by a thick needle every week for 12 freaking years.
this is a picture of an arterioventricular fistula.
renal failure patients may go through a surgical procedure to create a link between the vein and artery to allow easier blood flow during dialysis.
and if you think its nothing much..
this is how it will look like in the long run.
i first saw a arteriovenous fistula when i was at work.
as the patient rolled up his sleeve for me to take blood, i felt a deep pang of sadness for him.
to think of the pain he had to go through was.. unimaginable.
some other patients i experienced later even had them on BOTH ARMS.
some larger than the photo either, and sometimes you could even see it throbbing, pulsating.
i actually asked some patients if it hurts.
most of them told me. 我习惯了/ i'm used to it already.
... so heartbreaking.
imagine being used to PAIN.
and by some twist of fate i had the honour of poking ahpok's dad himself, LOL.
first patient of the day some more. hahah.
anyway, i realised i digressed a bit, but my main point is,
with the transplant, he never has to worry about the one day where his veins may collapse
and they have to find a different place to poke the needle in.
he can now do without the weekly visits to the dialysis centre, which affected his work,
as well as ahpok's mum who has to accompany him for each visit,
cause dialysis usually leaves the patient feeling weak.
and most important of all, he regained his freedom;
never will he need to depend on a mechanical kidney again.
Organ transplant definitely gives hope to not only the patients, but their family as well.
sure, there might be risks of rejection, which makes the effort goes to nought.
but i believe that if you never try, you may never know what impact you could make.
take it as the last good deed i do before i leave. (:
*and really. if in the event any shit happens to me, (CHOY)
please show this to my parents so they'll understand my wishes.
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