Hello and welcome to the Get to Life podcast where we have conversations about organ, tissue and eye donation. I'm Lori Steele. I'm Joey Boudreau. And today on The Get to Life we are joined by a reality star guys and this reality star will talk about his high donation.
And now his family is using their experience to help other grieving families. That's a great story. We want you to hear it. I mean what your friends to hear it.
So we need your help spreading the word. We try to make it easy, right? It's always easy. Easy peasy.
Easy peasy. I love it, Joe. You can find us on lopa.org slash podcast or you can find us on Apple Podcasts Google Play or whatever your favorite podcast app might be. That is easy peasy.
Very easy. Did you mean to say that? I did. Oh right, I love it.
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Our goal is to spur healthy conversations about Oregon, I and tissue donations. So if you're inspired, join our team today. You ready Joe? Yep.
Let's do it. Here on the gifted life adding a little star power when it comes to donation. We are hoping to spur healthy conversations about Oregon, I and tissue donation. And this reality star is certainly helping us to do that.
So Nico Schalley joins us now here on the gifted life. Hey, Nico. Hey there. Thanks for having me on.
Yeah, we appreciate you taking the time. We know life is busy for you. Nico is a star on Bravo's below deck. He's joining us to cover an important topic, which is what we focus on here on the gifted life and that's donation.
So Nico, we're going to ask about your tie to donation. We know that you are related to a hero, right? Yeah, that's a good thing. When a lot of us, including myself, sign up on the registry, sign up at the DMV, the Department of Motor Vehicles here.
I didn't really know a whole lot of just knew that I thought that this would be a good idea. What did you know before last year? And if not just trouble. So your younger brother's name is Tristan.
We call our Oregon, I and tissue donors heroes because they save and enhance lives through the donation, which is pretty powerful. So tell us a little bit about Tristan for those of us who don't know him. So we are younger than me. I'm actually one of five boys and we've unfortunately had an accident where we're passing.
He was made a decision because of that and people that are alive today. I was once blind, can help me and as well, phone victims and other. You mentioned that five people were able to receive a second chance at life, receive Tristan's organs. Were you able to meet or reach out to any of recipients at this point?
We were fortunate enough for one individual to reach out to us. But we're also even more fortunate that one specific individual, actually my brother's long and he opportunity to meet us. An amazing opportunity from actually meet the person that is alive today because of my brother. And that's the whole here.
And it's just something that maybe you want to imagine. I've been fortunate, Nico, a couple of times to be able to witness such an amazing event. To me, I've been doing this for almost 16 years and ill to this day. That is one of the, if not the most amazing and fulfilling opportunities that I get.
And to be able to see the families such as yours and that emotion that's there, it's awe-inspiring and it's certainly a thrill for us to at least be a part of. Can you tell me when you first saw his recipient? What were your emotions? I am walking in at first.
You're not going to want to meet this person and walking and not just sit there and meet this person for the first time. You know, I'm five years old. You know, these things happen in life. They shouldn't be any guilt.
I'm loving your family as I learn more about you guys because through your learning process, through your grief, you decided to choose donation and then you decided to help others. Right? So tell us about this foundation and I absolutely love what Mom wrote because I can feel her emotion too on there. I can imagine being a mom and losing a child.
But it seems like this is part of your healing journey, this foundation. So tell us about it. Tell us about the mission. The Illinois Northwest Indiana doing this process to reach something called things the memory box process in Illinois, West Indiana.
And then also the second thing that we were really strong on and want to eventually grow to you, larger is we'll be given everything. Wow, that's amazing. Because you know the restrictions on organ procurement agencies that we covered that on the podcast. Right.
We've talked about it before. You know, it's from the OPO or the organ procurement organization standpoint, we would love to do as much as we could or in every donor family. So unfortunately, you know, sometimes that can appear as though we are, you know, doing these things so that they say yes. So we are sometimes handcuffed and limited on what we can offer.
And for you guys to reach out through your grief, you were able to feel that need, you know, that organ procurement organizations can't, you know, and that's, I applaud you guys for or, you know, being able to do that. Touching so many lives, you know, even on top of, you know, the number of lives that he's already touched. Yeah, you know, one half here. You can change one.
That is amazing. And so I think it's a great neat family project, something to honor, Tristan, I just think that's amazing. And Nico, I want to talk to you personally, you've been talking, you know, as a family, we decided this. Your reality star, folks know you don't have to be an advocate for donation.
So why put this on your list? I mean, you're busy. Why is this so important? For me, it's just to highlight and own all this donation and most important thing to be done that's for it.
Yeah. You, have you signed up via a donor Nico? Yes, of course. Right.
I have been for a few. I was 16. And we'll follow your leads. See a good guy from the beginning.
Before we knew you, Nico, we love it. So if we want to help support the foundation, if we want to learn more about it, I know that a lot of our folks would love to read the note from mom on there. How do we do that? Tristan, Scott Foundation.
Tristan, Scott Foundation. So amazing. And hopefully you'll hear more about what the foundation is doing and how they're helping families right here on the gifted life. Nico, we thank you.
Thank you guys so much for having me. Yeah, Nico, Shali, joining us to honor his hero, Tristan. In our hero segment today, we learn more about Tristan, Scott, Shali, a hero. His brother Nico tells us more about it.
He was a type of guy that didn't really have a lot of money, but would still walk through Chicago and give, you know, he always had a care of kids, he really anything. Just like me, he had a very, but what he loved he loved unconditionally. You know, he just really was things fine. I would look up to the good things even after his life.
He truly just, you know, my inspiration. I really look up to him. And now we pause and say thank you, Tristan, for the gift of life. In our question and answer segment today, we have a question from Facebook.
We love that. You're communicating with us. We'll take it. I was hoping that maybe you can help me.
My brother passed away in 1999. I'm just going to find some of his recipients. I would really just like to know how they are, even if they don't want any contact, and I know that's hard for some. Are the records still available?
Well, there are challenges, of course, because it's 1999 and record keeping was certainly much different back then than it is, you know, almost 20 years later. But having said that, our family services department is one of the best. They take pride in helping facilitate the correspondence between donor families and recipients. And they've actually matched up a recipient and don't her family way back from 1980s.
Wow. So, so it's possible. If there is a way, it's certainly going to be found by them. So contact us at info at lopa.org.
I have every confidence that they will leave no stone unturned. Make sure that it happens. Yeah, I agree. If you have a question, you can reach us at info at lopa.org, or like this person did through Facebook, or donate life, Louisiana.
To get the life podcast crew, thanks Nico Shali for joining us on this episode. Of course, reality star of Robbo's Below Deck, but most importantly, he is the brother of a hero. Tristan is a hero and his family turning something so tragic into something so positive. Not only through the gift of donation, but also through the Tristan Scott Foundation.
Being able to help other families in a way that OPOs can't, unfortunately, and we're limited. Who knows to them? Yeah, making a change and hopefully we'll do more is what Nico said, so we're going to have to watch and see and hopefully have them back here on the gift of life. Have a challenge for all of you listening.
We want you to go out and do something that you don't normally do to help us make life happen. And maybe that's signing up to be an organiant tissue donor. Register me.org as a national registry. You can do that now.
So we encourage you to take that step and encourage others to walk that way and join the team. Have a good one. This is a production of the Louisiana Organ Procurement Agency for LOPA. And gifted life is hosted by Lori Steele, Joey Boudreau, and Sally Gentry.
Our producers are Kirsten Hines and Shalom Caraway. We are recorded, engineered, and mixed. In our Metery, Louisiana studio by Troy Perez.