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Karen Vine-Rickers: Gift of 8 Campaign
Hi, my name is Karen and organ donation is important to me because it saves lives and gives those who are sick like me, a second chance at leading a more normal and healthy life. To look at me, you would never know that I have two serious life-threatening diseases, but I do, Diabetes and now kidney failure. Both these illnesses are very exhausting to manage and this is why I am on a waiting list to have a double organ transplant.
I stay alive with the help of a dialysis machine. Every night for ten hours while I sleep, or at least try to sleep, I hook up via a port that was surgical inserted into my peritoneal cavity. Toxins and poisons that my kidneys normally would remove from my blood, are then cleaned. The dialysis machine is like an artificial kidney and without it, I would die.
During the day, I take multiple injections of insulin to stay alive because my pancreas doesn't secrete it anymore. In a normal healthy body, insulin is necessary to convert food into muscle energy. The insulin is like an artificial pancreas to me, and without it, I would also die.
Sadly, statistics tell me that complications from these two diseases, drastically increase my chances of dying prematurely. Therefore, having a double organ transplant of both a kidney and a pancreas seems to be my only hope of extending my life with any degree of health and wellness.
That is why I am writing and appealing to please take a moment to register and become an organ donor at www.beadonor.ca