5 years. Since just after that horrible day 4 years ago, the goal has been 5 years. “Take her home and grow her,” they told us, “if the day comes when she needs a heart-lung transplant, the success rate improves dramatically once a child is 5.” It seemed impossible. 5 years felt more like a lifetime, especially when we were taking our very first steps, but it gave us something to focus on, a goal to set our eyes on; a mantra that we kept repeating: 5 years, 5 years, 5 years.
But mantra’s can only get you so far and even if we got to 5 years, 10 years, 25 years, that still doesn’t mean that a heart and lung will be available for Lily no matter how desperately she may need them. Around us, in our heart, medical and PVS communities, we played witness to children who passed before organs became available and there were days that I would find myself just staring at the screen, feeling helpless. I would just keep thinking about Lily: what if this was her? What if we get her to 5 years old and we grow her strong and filled with fight and that’s not enough? What if the only thing standing in the way of her living a long and wonderful life is one person? One person who could have been a donor but whose family didn’t know their wishes? One person who thought that they had plenty of time and just figured they would register as an organ donor “later”, one person who could change the course of someone else’s life. I couldn’t let that happen, I needed to do something now to make a change, something I could do to help give our kids a second chance at life, I needed to find more donors.
It became my mission to get everyone I know to register as an Organ Donor. I started with what I thought was a reasonable goal: 50 people. I knew that one donor could save the lives of up to 8 people and if I could get 50 people to register as organ donors, then that could change the lives of 400 people. That gave me a purpose, something more than a mantra. Faster than I ever thought possible, we reached 50 people, so I doubled our goal and then we doubled it again. Our last goal was 300 people and today we reached 301 (update: now 363).
4 years ago today, we stood by, helplessly, as we watched Lily die. We can call it another name: a cardiac arrest, 15 minutes without vital signs, code pink, but those are just nice ways of saying that we watched her die. But 4 years ago today, we also witnessed a miracle and we saw her live. We cried when we saw her cry and we cheered when she fought the intubation tube because it meant she was alive. 4 years ago today, our family got a second chance. On December 7th Lily will be 5 years old and celebrating that milestone, getting to that goal will give us more joy than I can even begin to put into words. But we need to do more than just celebrate how lucky we are – we need to change the world, we need to pass this miracle along. We need to know that for every year Lily has been alive, at least 100 people have registered to become organ donors, so that when Lily turns 5 years old, 500 people will give 4000 people the second chance to spend more time with the people they love. And, if we reach 500 people before that then we’ll double that goal and go for 500 x 2 second chances.
We need your help though. The first part is obvious, if you haven’t registered as an organ donor, please grab your health card, your drink of choice and take 2 minutes to register. Just follow this link and help us change the world: www.beadonor.ca/crystal-trumper
The second step takes a little more effort, but not much: share this post and this page. Share Lily’s story with everyone you can think of: friends, family, colleagues; share it on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram. Use the image below and the hashtag #500for5 and help get the word out. Help us celebrate 5 years by giving 4000 people the same gift that we were given 4 years ago: a second chance at living an incredible life.
