Saving A Life Is Easier Than You Think

April is National Donate Life Month, a time to raise awareness of the lifesaving power of organ, eye and tissue donation. We celebrate the lives of people who are alive today thanks to the kindness of a stranger, and we honor the donors who helped save their lives.

Over 100,000 people in the United States are currently waiting for a lifesaving transplant, including roughly 2,000 in the Pacific Northwest. They are cancer patients, accident victims, people with life-threatening conditions. They are also grandmothers, sons, daughters, students, your neighbor.

EvergreenHealth is proud to partner with LifeCenter Northwest, which recognized us for our dedication to supporting organ donation and transplantation. EvergreenHealth helped facilitate 15 organ donations in 2015. Deceased organ, eye and tissue donors directly impact dozens of lives, and living donors can donate a kidney and a lobe of their liver.

How To Be An Organ Donor

• Become a Living Kidney Donor: If you're interested in becoming a potential kidney donor, talk with your doctor to make sure it's a safe option for you. Then, contact the National Kidney Registry. You'll complete a confidential medical screening and complete several pre-workup blood tests. LifeCenter Northwest will then contact you for a standard workup and determine if you're healthy enough to be a kidney donor.
• Become a Living Liver Donor: Living liver donation is possible because your liver has two lobes, and you can safely donate one of them to a patient in need. The liver is the only human organ that can regenerate, so your remaining lobe and the one transplanted into the patient in need will regenerate to normal size and function within a few months. To see if you qualify to be a liver donor, contact the American Liver Foundation Living Donor Network.
• Become an Organ Donor: It's easy to become an organ donor. Visit the Donate Life website to select what you'd like to donate after passing, including organs, eye components, bones and more. You'll get a heart on your driver's license and the peace of knowing your last act was to help save the lives of dozens of people in need.

This month and always, EvergreenHealth sends its thanks and admiration to our community's organ donors. When only the kindness of a stranger will save a life, we are continually in awe of how much kindness our community has to give.