Organ donors make difference to many patients.

Byline: THE HEALTH FILES By Tim Christie The Register-Guard

It was a small thing, really - about the size of a postage stamp - but it made a big difference to Bonnie Henderson.

It was 16 years ago, soon after the Eugene woman had given birth. Her feet were numb, she had trouble walking and she often lost her balance. Doctors detected a large benign tumor wrapped around and growing into her spinal cord.

A surgeon removed the tumor, then used a small piece of fascia, a lining tissue under the skin, to patch the hole in her spinal cord.

While not as dramatic as a heart or kidney transplant - it wasn't necessary to save her life - that tissue donation kept spinal fluid from leaking and played a key role in her recovery.

And for that to happen, someone had to make the decision to donate tissue and organs.

A survey of 4,500 Americans released last month found that nine in 10 support organ and tissue donation, but only 34 percent know the steps to become a donor.

Commissioned by the Coalition for Donation, the survey also found that 56 percent of respondents wished to donate all usable tissues and organs, 28 percent were undecided, 10 percent opposed donation and 6 percent wished to donate only certain organs or tissues.

Knowing how to donate is important because about 87,000 men, women and children, including 1,900 in the Pacific Northwest, are waiting for an organ transplant, according to the Oregon Donor Program. Thousands more are waiting for tissue transplants. Every day about 17 people die awaiting a transplant.

Becoming a donor isn't complicated: Either request a donor designation on your driver's license or carry a signed donor card.

But there's another important step, said Mary Jane Hunt, executive director of the Oregon Donor Program. Have a family discussion and make sure everyone knows about your decision. At the time of death, family members are asked to sign a consent form at the hospital, even if the patient has a donor card.

`They'll be comforted knowing they're not making the decision - they're just carrying out your wish,' she said.

Oregon has about 1.4 million tissue and organ donors. But relatively few will qualify as donors when the time comes, Hunt said. Disease, age and other complications disqualify some donors.

Still, a single donor can provide tissues, including eyes, skin, bone, connective tissues, heart valves and veins, and organs such as kidneys, heart, liver, lungs, pancreas and small intestine. Living donors can give blood, bone marrow, a single kidney or a portion of their liver or lung.

Last year in Oregon and southwest Washington, 84 organ donors enabled 274 internal organ transplants; 1,055 eye donors resulted in 1,020 cornea transplants, with the remainder used in medical research; and 568 people donated tissue.

Henderson didn't even know she was a tissue recipient until recently. Three years ago, the blood bank told her she could no longer donate blood because of her earlier surgery. Curious about whether she had received a tissue transplant, Henderson ordered her old medical records last winter, and talked to the surgeon and found out about the small piece of tissue used to patch her spinal cord.

"That was kind of wild - walking around I had no idea I had a little piece of another person's body inside mine," said Henderson, now a free-lance writer and public affairs assistant at Sacred Heart Medical Center. "It gives you pause."

While in Henderson's case, the transplant was a routine and minor part of surgery, for others a transplant is a matter of life and death.

Scott Becker, a 38-year-old Eugene man, is waiting for a kidney transplant because the pair he was born with have quit working. Every other day, he spends 3 1/2 hours hooked up to a dialysis machine that filters his blood.

`You're just drained when you get out of dialysis,' he said. `It's not fun.'

Becker, a former truck driver, said high blood pressure and polycystic disease killed his kidneys. He's been doing dialysis for three years and has been on the waiting list for a new kidney for six months. He'll probably have to wait another six months before he gets to the top of the list.

`To be a donor is a blessing to a patient,' he said. `It's giving someone else a life.'

Tim Christie can be reached at 338-2572.

TO BECOME A DONOR

Request a donor designation on your driver's license or carry a signed organ donor card, which can be printed off the Oregon Donor Program's Web site, www.ordonorprogram.org.

Tell your family about your decision so your wishes are understood.

For more information, call the Oregon Donor Program at [phone].