This is reblogged from my transplant buddy DAP, who has an excellent blog himself. I too came across this news item & feel pretty torn about it.

While it’s good that the organs are being donated & useable, it is hard to accept organs that come to us in this manner when lives are cut short so abruptly.

We are warned as recipients that there are minimal risks to us from overdose donors if we choose to accept those types of organs. Yet it’s encouraging to know even in a worst case scenario that HIV & Hepatitis have good drugs to treat them now, if they should develop down the line or some how slip by the rigorous testing.

I was lucky that my first job was in a local nursing home where I was required to get Hepatitis B shots before I started work, so I have more protection than I generally would have.

If given the choice I would probably choose to accept such an organ if it were offered to me. But it is hard to think about the circumstances sometimes surrounding donor deaths, it’s not always a “natural cause” that leads to the donation.

Yet, I know it was well set into motion before I ever entered the picture. I’m not waiting for someone to die. I’m hoping that someone who died will regift their organs to me so I might live.

No matter what the circumstance, I’ll always be grateful to my future donor & their family for allowing me to keep going.