Have you ever really tried to envision what life may look life for someone who requires an organ transplant?
Really give in and put yourself in another's shoes.
I have not yet been (I hope to never be) put on a transplant list for a failing organ.
I had a roommate at the children's hospital once who was my age at the time (17) and who needed a new liver. She was diagnosed with Ulcerative Colitis as well as Primary Sclerosing Cholangitis. Her Colitis was fairly stable but her liver was failing. I was having the opposite issue - my liver was relatively stable but I needed by large intestine out.
She needed a new liver.
She required a new liver in order to survive. To stay alive.
She deserved to be on that transplant list.
Can you really imagine this?
We live in a world, right now, of easy fixes for everything. 'I own a car and it is broken so I deserve to have it fixed because I cannot drive without it'.
'My washing machine broke down. I need a new washing machine because daily life requires me to have a functioning washing machine'.
What if you had to wait in line and there were only a certain number to be given out... and you never actually get what you required?
Our world right now has confused the line between needs and wants. But whatever we feel we need - we believe we also deserve.
But what if you truly needed something? A genuine necessity, a deserved necessity, and found out you would never receive what is required? What if you could not get what you needed because of a lineup?
We are all taught this line of thinking: if you need it, you receive it.
Could you picture being denied your LIFE?
Your life, reduced to a set of numbers, statistics, money. Triaged by whatever they see on paper - age, other illnesses, level of risk, complications, habits, history of addiction or mental illness.
The ultimate question: how do people prepare themselves when being placed on a donor list? How would we come to terms with the mindset that physicians say we need a transplant to continue our life, but that it may never happen? So we live our lives through the age of easy fixes only to find out that we may never receive something we sincerely deserve.
When we really break it down, although we have a very good policy and set of rules and requirements, it still sounds insane. It sounds devastating.
