So, just about all of you here know that I am alive because of a double-lung transplant. Obviously, organ transplantation is something I feel very strongly about.
Today is National Blue and Green Day, a day within Donate Life Month (which April is) where we really focus on bringing awareness and attention to the need for organ donors. And there is great, great need.
There are 115,000 people currently on the waiting list for an organ or tissue transplant. When I was listed in 2005, that number was in the high 90Ks. In 13 years, it has ballooned. To give you a visual:
This is "The Shoe"--Ohio Stadium at OSU. It holds about 104,000 people.
The national registry has about 10,000 more people on it than are seen in this photo.
Imagine that for a second.
That's more than the entire town of Burbank, CA; Cambridge, Mass.; or Charleston, SC.
Now--of these people, twenty-two of them die every day, waiting for a donor that never comes.
Imagine those people are your parents; your siblings; your cousins or aunts or uncles or grandparents. Your best friend. Your pastor or favorite teacher.
And we can do something about that: by getting more people to be organ donors.
Being a donor is totally free. It costs nothing to you or your family. It's very easy to sign up.
I'm alive because a woman named Suzanne decided to donate her organs. She helped me and at least two other people. She saved my life.
Please register, so you can save someone else's life.