Donate Life

Words can't describe when you work on a project that actually saves people's lives. We worked on a campaign for Donate Life Week. It encourages people to donate their tissue and organs. One organ and tissue donor can transform the lives of 10 or more people.

Here are three special people that we had the honour to meet. 

Heart transplant recipient

Little Maisy received a lifesaving transplant at the age of 3.Maisy is a bubbly five year old who for half her life has had a new heart, thanks to a generous deceased donor. 

From very early on it was clear Maisy had a troublesome heart, at only 7 days old she had her first open heart transplant.

Mum Michelle: The contrast in quality of life is enormous.  Many donors with the support of their families have saved a life but they have also provided a quality of life which that person may not have never known before.  Every day I think of that Donor and their family, and I have so much gratitude that they choose to save a stranger. 

Liver transplant recipient

Ante is a young father to baby Iva and a grateful liver recipient. 
Without his life-saving transplant, Ante would never have seen his first child born or get back to enjoying an active family and work life. Ante received his liver transplant at the Austin in 2015.

Waiting for a kidney transplant

Rob is on the transplant waiting list for a kidney.  A transplant is his only chance to live a normal life.

He has been on dialysis for just over 2 years. Before then he was extremely active with a construction company (office based). He works 3 days a week when not on dialysis. Rob has already been through the tests for two live donor options (ex-wife & friend) without success and is now going through the process again with his son (initial tests to come back in August).

For Rob ‘the not knowing when you get the call’ is the difficult part. If he knew a date he could work for it, but described dialysis and waiting as ‘like being in jail’ from a restrictiveness perspective.

Behind-the-scenes