Please join us at California Pizza Kitchen for a flavorsome fundraising event. All you need to do is bring in this flyer on our scheduled date and present it to your server when ordering. 20% of your check will benefit our organization. So come out and enjoy something delicious from the CPK menu. Your taste buds will thank you, and so will we.

Nebraska Organ and Tissue Donor Coalition

California Pizza Kitchen

One Pacific Place

10317 Pacific Street

402.343.0770

Tuesday, April 27th, 2010

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Nebraskans have a strong history of willingness to help a neighbor in need. That willingness was underscored this week with the announcement of two significant milestones in our state. First, the Department of Motor Vehicles reported that more than 50 percent of the licensed drivers in Nebraska are now registered organ donors. Second, the Nebraska Organ Recovery System received organs from its 1,000th donor.

Read entire letter

See 10/11 (Lincoln) Online Video Update

Read Omaha World-Herald Story

Across the nation, thousands of Donate Life flags will be flown and displayed throughout the month of April. Of the 96 total hospitals in Nebraska, 69 have committed to flying or displaying the Donate Life Flag during the month of April.

“We are excited about the opportunity to join together with hospitals, transplant centers and government agencies within our state to raise awareness for the ever increasing need of organ and tissue donors” says Stephanie Lochmiller, spokesperson for Nebraska Organ Recovery System. “We hope this serves as a call to action for people to join their state registries.”

Right now in the United States, there are more than 100,000 people waiting for a life-saving organ transplant, 500 of those are right here in Nebraska. Every 18 minutes a patient on the transplant waiting list will die, and every 11 minutes a new name will be added.

To learn more about organ, eye, and tissue donation, or to join the Nebraska Organ & Tissue Donor Registry, please visit www.nedonation.org.

In tragedy, a Nebraska couple donated their 2-year-old son Matthew’s liver — the first liver transplant from Nebraska.

A team from the UCLA Medical Center arrived at Children’s Hospital in Omaha in 1984, picking up the precious cargo. It was taken to California, where a 14-month-old named Lily, her stomach distended like a watermelon, lay days from death.

She lived, and “Baby Lily” became part of the lore at the Nebraska Organ Recovery System in Omaha. Her photo looks out from a wall of history of transplant surgery — along with a photo of Matthew Bemis.

Nearly a quarter-century later, Matthew’s parents, Milt and Janet Bemis of David City, Neb., will attend a big event Friday: the wedding of “Baby Lily.”

“I know I’ll cry,” Milt said, “but it will be for joy.”

Janet said she and her husband naturally will think of Matthew, “but this is Lily’s day. It’s a whole new chapter in her life.”

Lily Mandel will marry Brian Allen in upstate New York, near Syracuse. She said by phone this week that she picked the date for a reason: It’s the 24th anniversary of her transplant.

“Brian and I started dating on my 18th birthday, May 19,” Lily said. “I’ve always considered August 8th my ’second’ birthday.”

She wouldn’t have made it even close to her actual second birthday if not for the Bemises’ donation of Matthew’s liver. His corneas and other organs were donated to others.

“I am so fortunate that I had a second chance at life,” Lily said. “One donor can help so many recipients.”

The Bemises were visiting Hawaiian Village, the residential area south of Papillion, when Matthew fell into the lake. Crystal Stara, his sister, recalls looking out a window as her beloved little brother was pulled out.

“That picture never erases,” she said. “I was 10, and I remember adults pulling him onto a little dock. I could see that he was a grayish-purple. As a mom now, I don’t know how my parents went through that.”

CPR was performed, and he was taken to a hospital. He was on life-support for three days, and Janet was holding him, knowing he would not live.

To Milt, she quietly said, “I wonder if we could . . .”

“Donate?” he asked, completing her thought.

The world’s attention was on the Los Angeles Olympics, but some doctors in L.A. focused on Baby Lily, whose liver was filled with tumors. When they learned that a child in Nebraska was near death from drowning, calls were quickly made. The Bemises said yes.

The 10-hour transplant operation at UCLA succeeded, but life expectancy at the time wasn’t great.

“Very few places in the country were doing livers,” said Karen Risk, executive director of the Nebraska Organ Recovery System.

The federally licensed Nebraska system was incorporated in 1977. Since then, the system has counted 977 organ donors from Nebraska. Among them are 624 livers.

One donor can help up to eight recipients. People can register to donate at www.nedonation.org.

After Matthew’s death, Milt and Janet Bemis became advocates for organ transplants, speaking often.

They met Lily and her parents a year after the transplant. When Lily was 5, she and her family visited Nebraska.

The families lost touch for several years, but daughter Tiffany Bemis (now Maly), who was 6 when Matthew died, had to go to upstate New York several years ago for her work. She met Lily and had a wonderful time, and returned to New York a year later with Crystal.

“Lily is petite and always has a smile,” Crystal said. “She is just sweet, and her name fits her perfectly.”

Lily has a degree in business management and works at an animal clinic. Brian, her fiance, works in digital radiography. They will honeymoon in Hawaii.

Milt and Janet met the couple a few years ago in Washington, D.C.

“They really liked Brian,” Lily said. “That meant a lot. Their opinions are almost as important as my parents’.”

Crystal and Tiffany will join Milt and Janet at the wedding. (The Bemises also have a son Jared, a starter on David City Aquinas’ 2006 state championship basketball team.)

Recipients don’t always communicate with donors or donor families. Milt said he is dedicating this trip to all who have donated loved ones’ organs but “don’t have the opportunity to see the joyful ending of their tragic stories.”

Lily is grateful the Bemises will attend her wedding, and is grateful for their gift of life. If she ever has a son, she said, “his middle name will be Matthew.”

 Gift of life
Donations from Nebraska since 1977, when the Nebraska Organ Recovery System was launched. Some donors have given multiple organs.
Organ donors - 977
TRANSPLANTED ORGANS
Hearts - 287
Lungs - 143
Livers - 624
Kidneys - 1,644
Pancreases - 26
Intestines - 18
 
First kidney recovered - 1977
First liver recovered - 1984
First heart recovered - 1985
First pancreas recovered - 1989
First lung recovered - 1990
First intestine recovered - 1997
Source: Nebraska Organ Recovery System

Contact the writer
444-1132, michael.kelly@owh.com

Just four months after the second heart transplant of his life, the former Georgia All-American learned that officials have granted his request to use a cart during qualifying school to earn his tour card.

http://sports.espn.go.com/golf/news/story?id=3619090

In the April edition of the WKC the ethical implications of organ donation were raised. Given the importance of this matter, I would like to offer several clarifications from the perspective of Catholic moral teaching..

1. Organ and tissue donation is heroic and praiseworthy. As an act of charity, organ and tissue donation have repeatedly received magisterial support and encouragement. Indeed, Pope John Paul II in the encyclical Evangelium Vitae lists organ donation among “heroic acts,” stating that, “A particularly praiseworthy example of such gestures is the donation of organs, performed in an ethically acceptable manner.” (86) Equally clear in its affirmation of the goodness of organ donation are the Ethical and Religious Directives for Catholic Health Care Services, published by the National Conference of Catholic Bishops. Directive #63 states: “Catholic health care institutions should encourage and provide the means whereby those who wish to do so may arrange for the donation of their organs and bodily tissue, for ethically legitimate purposes, so that they may be used for donation and research after death.” The teaching is thus clear: organ donation is morally permissible.

2. The donor must be dead before organs and tissue can be harvested. Equally clear in the church’s teaching is the insistence that respect for the life of a potential donor is maintained. In directive #64 of Ethical and Religious Directives we read: “Such organs should not be removed until it has been medically determined that the patient has died. In order to prevent any conflict of interest, the physician who determines death should not be a member of the transplant team.” Clearly we should be concerned that organ donors will not have their lives interrupted prematurely. That the pope is also concerned with this question is seen in an address he gave to the Pontifical Academy of Science in 1989. In this address Pope John Paul states that given the difficulty of determining the moment of death there is a danger of prematurely taking someone’s life in an effort to gain a transplant organ. He called upon the academy, which is composed of eminent scientists from various disciplines, to examine this question.

This question attained a new urgency with the advent of technology that could keep a person’s heart and lungs functioning artificially. Traditionally death had been defined as the irreversible cessation of the heart and respiration. Now, new technology demands a more precise definition. While the traditional definition is sufficient in most cases, how does one determine death in the case of an individual on a ventilator? From this question arose the definition of “brain death” as the determination that death has truly occurred, making it possible to remove any organs for transplantation. As seen, however, in a recent letter to the WKC, the definition of brain death is not without controversy. Some question whether brain death is a valid determination of the death of a human being. After all, someone may be brain dead but continue activity associated with living, such as heartbeat and breathing.

3. The determination of death is left to medical experts. The reason the Pope consulted scientists on this matter is that it would be beyond his own expertise to scientifically answer the question, What is death? The Church, therefore, does not make any specific statement regarding the legitimacy of medically determined criteria for establishing brain death. This respect for the competency of science and medicine to answer questions in their own fields is a hallmark of Catholic medical ethics. This is seen as early as 1957 when Pius XII in “The Prolongation of Life” stated that the determination of death in such situations “does not fall within the competence of the Church.” He stated that it is the physician who offers the final determination of death. (See, The Pope Speaks, 4: no. 4, 1958, 396-398.)

For this same reason, the present pope placed the question before the scientists of the Pontifical Academy of Science. What then were the conclusions of the Academy? The Academy stated that death occurs when “there has been an irreversible cessation of all brain functions, even if cardiac and respiratory functions which would have ceased have been maintained artificially.” (See, Furton, Edward, “Reflections on the Status of Brain Death,” Ethics and Medics, Oct. 1999, Vol. 24, No. 10, 3-4.) Hence, when the whole brain is dead, the person is considered dead, despite the fact that “residual cellular activity” may continue, either in the brain or other parts of the body. (Ashley, Benedict, Kevin O’Rourke, Health Care Ethics.’ A Theological Analysis, 4th edition, 1997, 403.)

The question remains, however, of the criteria for determining that brain death has occurred. This too is a medical question that should be decided by experts in the field. In Kentucky the definition of death is the same as that of the Academy, the “total and irreversible cessation of all brain function, including the brain stem.” This must be verified by two physicians. (Kentucky statutes 446-400.) Various tests are conducted to make a determination that the brain no longer has the capacity “to integrate and coordinate the physical and mental functions of the body.” (Furton, “Reflections,” 4.) Again, the Church does not determine what those tests should be; that is left to the experts in the field of medicine.

Given these considerations, Catholics who desire to be organ donors upon their deaths should have no fear in performing such a charitable and heroic act. Edward Furton, the editor of the National Catholic Bioethics Center publication Ethics and Medics, offers the following conclusion: “Although no definitive judgment has been rendered, one may safely conclude that Catholic physicians may, in good conscience, employ brain death criteria in their determination of death. Similarly, Catholic patients may agree to give or accept organ transplants on the basis of these same criteria. If the Vatican should ever express reservations to the use of these criteria, it will likely be preceded by a widespread rejection of brain death by members of the medical community. There are voices calling for a rejection of these criteria today, but they would appear to be in the minority. (Furton, “Reflections,” 4.)

Rev. Larry Hostetter, STD, is Assistant Professor of Religious Studies, Brescia University, Owensboro, KY