Today, we were honoured to be invited to speak to a group of theatre nurses who are going to be or have been part of a retrieval team for donor organs. These nurses don’t get to see the whole organ donation story even though they are part of a very important process, so the seminar […]
According to the National Carers Week’s website, there are 2.7 million unpaid carers currently here in Australia and this week is Nationals Carers Week (11th – 17th October 2015). I was a full time carer for my husband a few years ago…this is our story… As regular readers will know, my husband had to have […]
Today, my husband and I returned to a hospital where we used to spend a lot of time…it is where he went to the liver clinic for years, where he had his liver transplant and to which he will remain connected as a patient of for the rest of his life. But today was a […]
It does worry me that if my husband was involved in an accident, or needed urgent medical attention and I wasn’t with him, how would the medics know that he has had a liver transplant and what medication he is on? He does wear a medic alert disc around his neck, but if that is […]
Facebook has a feature that reminds you of past events that you have posted about, and today, it reminded us of a day that was one of the most stressful in my husband’s liver transplant journey. It was the day we experienced what is known as a dummy run…it occurs when you get called into […]
This week is DonateLife Week 2015, and has been all about raising awareness about organ and tissue donation. So for this week’s My Friday Five, I am giving five reasons why you should be a registered organ donor. Be a Super Hero! One organ and tissue donor can transform the lives of 10 or more […]
Continuing this week’s theme of organ donation, I asked my husband to write about what it was like being a transplant recipient…he often gets asked if it feels weird or strange…this is his answer. Warning…there is a picture of his old liver ahead… I don’t have any trouble with the concept of having someone else’s […]
Being on a waiting list for an organ donor can be somewhat surreal…some patients are only on the list for a day or two, some for a few months, others for years. And it is even more surreal when you are waiting for a cadaver organ (ie from someone who has died). I can’t begin […]