Donation Education

Hello and welcome to the Gifted Life, where we have conversations about organ, tissue, and eye donation. I'm Roy Steel. I'm Joey Boudron. I'm Sally Gentry.

And today we're talking about education. It is key. Yes it is. We'll be talking to two ladies who've been busting myths and spreading awareness here at LOPA for years.

And we're going to talk about boredom. Okay. Like right now, dumb, dumb. That and more coming up here on the Gifted Life.

Thank you for being part of our team. Our ask is that you spread the word about what we're doing here on the podcast. Most definitely spread the word. We're easy to find.

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We're out there. We want you joining with us. We want to spur healthy conversations about organ, tissue, and eye donation. You guys ready to do that now?

Sure. Here we go. Here on the Gifted Life podcast, we are excited. Friends of the studio.

Yes you are. It's about to get left up in here. There we go. There we go.

Yeah. We got Sharon, Sharon, show. I'm two best community educators. But don't boom.

We're a team, Joey. We have Sharon Raymond and Cheryl McGee-Heel. That's a lot. Nice.

Doing great jobs. We're going to share their secrets and how they came to be with Lopa here on the podcast. We are certainly excited. So Sharon, how long have you been with Lopa?

17 years. You look like 20. I got started when I was three. Yes.

That's a bad match. All right. Michelle, how many years you got in? I've been here around 23 years, but 18 years in Florida this October.

Wow. Let me tell you, Laura, I got to share office space when I first came to work with Lopa with both these plays. You'll get together. Yeah.

It was a bad and blue and some uncles. Sally, I would share all. Cheryl, everybody blames Nick. Do you notice I don't sit next to Cheryl in conferences because I don't want to get blamed when she starts talking.

She's talking to me and I go to the office side of the room. I agree. I agree. We talk about these people with different talents from different walks of life coming together, working together to make life happen.

So I want to pick your brain. So 18 years ago, what happened in your life? Cheryl, what got you here? Yeah.

In 1997, my brother had an aneurysm and my husband had been on dialysis for five years. My brother was out jogging in the morning in the afternoon in that July of 1997 and had a terrible headache. He went to the emergency room. I got the call when I got there to Dr.

Diagnose an aneurysm. So we began to pray to Dr. said that he could get in and reduce the swelling and we prayed all night and on Sunday I went to church. When I got off the elevator, I looked at family members and I knew at that point he was gone.

My dad refused to come to the hospital and he said, you know what? You do what you have to do, you do the oldest. I was approached by Rebecca. Her name was Rebecca from Lobo.

And she asked for consent. And I'm number one of nine kids. So everyone had an opinion. Oh, no.

Oh, no. He looked like he's dead. Let's pray. Cheryl, you don't have to hurry up until you don't have to hurry up and do anything.

In about three, three and a half hours my brother chipped, you know what? He wanted to be an organ donor. He wanted to help somebody. Even Roderick.

At that point we thought, oh my God, why do you need to keep me? I spoke with the doctor and the nurses and they asked, what's he on the waiting list? And I said, yes. They said, we'll need to do some testing.

And they did the test. Four or five, that next morning. They said it was a match. And there was a transplant.

Roderick. You walked it. You believed it. Yeah.

It was feet. It was so crazy because when they asked, they give you a sheet of paper. I'm gonna say day because that's the back of the day. It was y'all.

I was gonna ask you was 97. Yeah. What was the thought of donation in 97? You know, we thought about it, but it was just so new for the family.

You know, the entire family. High blood pressure, all this. Everybody knew about it, but as far as having a transplant, this was something new to us. So I remember just looking at the sheet of paper, you know, giving away the heart, the liver, but when it got to the eyes, I said, oh, no, don't touch his eyes.

That you know, I thought about, wow, I know anything about the eyes. So you was a match. And I tell you, the day of my brother's funeral, the pastor came to the church and he said, don't worry about anything. I just left Roger at the hospital and he peed.

Oh, wow. That was a better suite. It was, it was, it was really, it was something. Now she's lighting up when she's talking about that.

That's how she is out in the community. I love it. I love it. How long had it been since he had peed, you know, how long was he on dialysis?

Five years. Changes in life. That July was five years. And my brother and everything happened in July, the, the, the aneurysm three days later, the transplant three days later, the funeral three days later, he was able to come home and pee.

It's funny, you know, because people think, well, you know, it's got to be pretty easy to match someone up, you know, but in their brother-in-law's being brother-in-law's, but there's so many different things that have to happen with the antigen testing, especially back then, to be able to match two people up for them to be a perfect match like that and for him to be able to receive the kidney and go ahead. Like you said, Pete, you know, there is, is really an amazing thing. Wow. So a crash course.

That was, that was a crash course and donation. And then six months later, I got a call from Lopa. They wanted to know how he was doing and where we interested in becoming a volunteer. And I spoke to Roger Gabbawy and he said, oh, yeah, we could do it.

We could do it. And that's the beginning of the journey with Lopa. Look at you now. We became volunteers.

All these years, making life happen. I love that. Alright, Ms. Sharon, I'm going to turn to you.

Seventeen years at Lopa, you're at communities, you're just spelling myths, you're spreading facts, you're increasing the registry. Tell us how you got here and why you keep doing it. Well, Cheryl and I have a longer back history than just Lopa. We started, started working with her when we were at Tewing.

And she was in a cubicle behind mine, which if you know you cannot sit anywhere in the room with Cheryl and not know that she's in the room. I'm really that statement. Yes. We can talk about that.

So she was always talking about Lopa and all the ways, talking about volunteering, a new situation with her husband and he needed a kidney transplant and he had received one. And the story with her brother and she said, you know what, there's an opportunity, we're going to get somebody to do that full time, and I'm going to sit on a panel to interview people. And I said, you're doing it. Why would you interview someone else?

And everyone that came up in the interview mentioned Cheryl and they said, well, let's just cut through the red tape. And then she started working here full time. So we still kept in touch. You know, we had become close friends by that point.

you can't help it, you know, it's just like infectious when she met her. And so she would call me from time to time and we would keep in touch. And a year after my second son was born, then I came on board to help her out. I thought I was just helping her out, you know?

Because she had a big job and we had to go into the five parishes and we were targeting minorities and trying to educate them on donation. And one of the things, as Julie just mentioned about, is that you have all these family members and one person you can see struggling going through dialysis, but I don't look at it as the one patient because it affects the entire family. So when one person gets a transplant, you are literally saving a family because just think of who still has to hold on a job, someone still has to have a health insurance, but someone has to get this patient and their loved one, two dialysis, three times a week, someone has to make sure they eat right types of food, so you have the kids involved. Daddy, did you take your medication?

Did you get your shot? So the whole family is on dialysis. And so donation doesn't just affect the patient. And it's rare because the need is so great, especially within the minority community, you would think everybody should be in line to give to their family members, but diabetes and high blood pressure are genetic.

So if that has it, he possibly gave me those genes too. And if I have it, then I may not be healthy enough to donate to my loved one. So that's why it's important for them to then become advocates for their loved one, not only to say, maybe I'm not as healthy as I could be, but you should sign up because if we don't increase the registry, then we're not gonna have enough pool of patients to say yes or feelings. I can't convince me, I'm signing up.

Okay, that's really exciting. Show me a heart. So what are some of the myths in the community that you hear or continue to hear about why, well, I can't be an organ donor because. Yes, we still hear some of the same myths that we've heard years ago.

Some of the younger people that we talked to will say, I've already signed up, I have the heart of my driver's license, but we still hear, I wanna make sure that I'm dead, dead. And they put two deaths together, like it's a hyphenated word and just making sure. So being dead once is not gonna be good enough. And we have to make sure that we let them know that brain death is a clinical form of death.

There's nothing to come back from from brain death. This is not a brain injury, it's not a coma, it's not trauma to the brain that could be recoverable. This is the next step with the funeral. So in between that process of a death declaration and a funeral, you can make life happen and that life could be someone in your family.

Yeah. So I'm interested by this. I've been at LOPA for 20 years. So in Louisiana, Cheryl, you're in New Orleans, sharing you're up in.

Treeboard. So when you were talking, you said that you joined your friends and you're recovering this five parish area. So over 20 years, lots of changes, right? So kind of walk us through some of the maybe major changes from then 20 years later to now.

Many things have changed. But I remember getting into the churches because it was very important because we heard so many people say, I wanna take it with me or one man told me, you know what, I become an organ donor, but not my eyes because when I get to heaven, I need to see Jesus. And he was serious. So I knew it was important to become part of the church community and it's easier now.

It's easier because the hospitals, when you're at the hospital and our nurses here at LOPA and the hospital, we get a lot of feedback from families because they're hurting. That pastor is there. So now the pastor is willing to have us come and speak to church members, have us part of the health fairs. But we still hear the same thing.

And that's why it's important I go year after year and I'm sure sharing does also. There's some churches with three and four locations and I find myself going every year because as the church grow, knowledge is still important. The schools, we have like, and I'm sharing, you also attend more schools than I do. And there's a difference, not going directly to the principal, we can go directly to the teachers now because the students are at the OMB, they know more about organ tissue and eye donation.

So it's easier now to get into schools. More partners. 20 years ago, we were just getting the message out. Hopefully they'll understand getting to know LOPA and what we're all about.

Again, a community, we have more community health fairs and to become partners with other organizations that's been helpful. I have two sorogies calling me just the other day and they should share what's going on. What events do you have going on? I'm like, wow.

I'm asking you to come. That's me. What do I have going on? So they could be part of what we're doing.

And I thought, what a change. You know, going into City Hall and asking them, my, we need to be out here. Look how many people are on dialysis. Now they understand that we are part of the health community before we weren't seen as being part of a health fair.

Now, you know, we really can't ignore organ donation. In our state, we have over 2,000 people on the waiting list. Now, as far as kidneys, African Americans represent 66% of the waiting list just for kidneys in our state. Yeah.

So that's a shocking statistic. Like most people are waiting for that. So we have to get the word out. And I know when I'm out in the community and we say these stats, I'm like, okay, I've heard the stats.

But the volunteers that we have brought on board, we work together those testimonials, I think. We're the recipients. The trans members, the recipients have the most powerful impact to me just because they are a living testimony. And they wouldn't be standing in front of you talking to you if they didn't get that word in.

And so they have a more impactful message. And to me, just seeing the results of donation, stand before you telling you, I'm just so glad and so thankful. Somebody had enough compassion to say yes to donation because I had six months to live. Now, I know you guys have been doing this for 20 years.

I know when I'm out of health fair, I'll text Joey and here's in Sally, like, man, we got 10 sign up today. Like, I think of the live saved after a semester of working with college students like in 150. So is it still like a win for you guys after you do it? Oh, it's a win.

I was so proud of myself. I panicked myself on the back. I was at a health fair a few weeks ago and a woman came up to me and she says, oh, I can't do that because I can't donate blood. And I said that doesn't mean you can't donate organs.

And she was very forthcoming. And she said, I have been HIV positive since 95. And I said, well, I'm so grateful to tell you that we have the hope act. And you can donate because they are now doing transplants to HIV positive patients.

And she took that one and said, and she signed up on the spot. And I went, why do you go through it? I'm going to get a high five in here too. Yes, I like that.

So out in the community, what are some of the things that you would say work in the communities that you try to reach to? Like what are some of the wins for you? The wins for me is the big events. I've noticed in the past couple of years, not only what essence, essence best bring people from all over the country.

And being able to have our volunteers, our recipients, staff, we're able to break it down. Whatever you want to know, we can share it. Because people want to do it, but it's just that one thing. I have high blood pressure.

I have diabetes. In the large crowds now, we can bring a team together to answer all those questions. And seeing a person signed up to be an organ donor, just answered that. We just answered that one question.

You know, I have diabetes. I don't think I can do that. Oh, I'm diabetic too. I'm an organ donor.

And I like seeing the light bulb come on. Yeah. Because a lot of them don't know why that they haven't signed up. It could be because, well, we just never talked about it.

And I like to find out, well, why haven't you? Oh, well, I haven't thought about it. I haven't talked about it to my family or I haven't talked about it with my pastor. And I said, well, your pastor shouldn't have a problem with it because God didn't have a problem with it.

He gave his only begotten son. So what's your problem? Oh, well, I don't know. And then I tell him, you're not going to feel a thing.

And then it goes, being, oh, right. You're talking about after I'm gone. Well, maybe I'm going to need this or this in afterlife. And then I show him my bumper sticker.

Don't take your organs to heaven because heaven knows we need them here. And I tell the kids in the driver's head, when I get to heaven, I better not be giving the same body. I want a size eight body. And I want 16-foot wings on the back.

And I don't want to have to cook, eat, buy groceries, none of that. So don't tell me you're going to need kidneys and lungs and all of this stuff in the afterlife. Because guess what? When I want to get somewhere, then I'm just going to say, and I'm going to be there.

That's right. I'm not carrying this around. We can see any rails and they can keep it here. She keeps it real.

I like about that. And while you guys are storytellers, we're just like, smiles on our face like, yeah, that's right. And when they hear it, they're like, well, yeah. I mean, that makes sense.

And they just never thought about it that way. You know, that's another thing. 20 years. We were so conservative, trying to say the right thing to the public.

But after a while, I want to take it with me. Well, if you tell this, when you think you're going. It depends on the crowd. It depends on the age.

But I pay attention to expressions. And where you're talking to me, I realize, well, you know, what? I have a pressure and I have diabetes. And my doctor told me I can't do that.

What have you spoken to someone at the Louisiana Alghenpuckierment Agency? We can tell you, matter of fact, we talk to your doctor. So that's why it's important that, Lopa, I'm so excited that we have our professional educators in the hospitals. Because if the doctors are afraid, they're going to give you the wrong message.

And for minorities, let me tell you. And it's not only minorities. Yeah, because if you live in New Orleans, there's a lot of myths. It's crazy stuff.

Well, there's voodoo. It's a voodoo. They talk about death. They talk about it.

They're going to be around the corner. And I'm like, but you have insurance. Yeah, I've got insurance. I said, so you expect to get in an accident?

No. So it's a state law. You have insurance. So it should be a law that you talk about organization to your family.

That's right. Because if you just anticipate, you don't know the future. So what will it hold if you don't play it for it? All right, everybody go sign up.

Hope you sign up right in the show. Sharon and Cheryl out to talk to you if not. Yeah, we're not scared. Come see me.

All right, so tell us the communities that you cover now. Kind of what's happening. I am in the street port, Belja area. I cover the Northwest region.

I can go from Alexandria up to Vivian over from Greenwood over to Arcadia. And then we also have community educators throughout the state. But if you call the 800 number, we'll get to you. All the time, every time.

And guess what? They found out that we have cell phones. So now they're calling ourselves on. Bigger FaceTime.

Bigger FaceTime, Facebook. Just call us. There you go. So you're in New Orleans?

I'm in New Orleans. Cover the metro area. Yeah. Have a partner in Atlanta.

Atlanta Steven. So we had to shout out my sister from another mother. But we work together here. Leonard does a lot with the schools, the races.

And we just work well. We bounce off each other. Whenever there's a need here, there's a need there. So you can request a speaker on our website.

Love about that org. Feel out that form. And it'll get to the right community educator to come to your area and speak to any event you have. You want to miss any event?

Please visit our website. Yes. This is our website. We need it.

Love about org. Call us. We can talk to you guys all day. All year long.

24-7. I like this inside of you guys. Talking about me, but let me tell you, you just have to call me. I love it.

You can request one of us requests. We will travel. We like that. Thanks for your almost 20 years of service, ladies.

I love my job. We make life happen together. Every day. I appreciate you guys.

On the gift of life. Boardam. That's what we're talking about, right? That's it.

How interesting can boardam be? That was our mental health guru. What you got? You might be surprised about that.

I just heard recently from one of our co-workers that during periods of boredom, you may become very creative because you have a quiet time. You know, you're sitting just a great idea. Go ahead. I think what happens for us is we kind of get complacent.

What we do on a regular basis. I mean, it might be busy and we're here and there and we're doing different things. But then we go same old, same old. I'm really tired.

I'm bored with all this. What are we going to do next? I think the thing that does happen and I found it, my thing is I go outside in the yard. I get inspiration that way and I go, this would be a great thing to talk about or to build or to do whatever the case might be.

But a lot of times I hear people say, well, I'm just bored. What are you going to do about it? Well, I can't do anything. I'm just going to sit here and feel sorry for myself.

So what are you doing, Laurie? I'll get you more bored. Well, I have three kids' husband job. There you go.

I don't really have a lot of downtime. But I like to do family things. I like to go places. I like to go to the trampoline park and I jump with the kids.

I like that. I like to listen to music. I perfect my moves in the mirror. Well, you could.

I've got all the days I'm showing you now behind the mic. But yeah, what about you? I like to play golf if I'm bored. That's boring to me.

Not a lot of golf lately with the new building and everything else going on. Yeah. Work. Work gets in the way of stuff.

Well, that's right. It does. So I think that for those of us that are still pretty well involved with what's going on on a daily basis, we don't really have time to get bored. And then I wonder sometimes, is that just as an excuse for some folks not to do things.

You know, because we can sometimes rationalize it out that I'm just bored. I can't do anything. Or we can say, all right, let's get up from here and let's go do something that will kind of be productive just for us. It doesn't mean it has to be for anyone else.

But just for ourselves individually, I think that does make a difference in how we feel and think about the world in general. Yeah. And I have a four-year-old, a five-year-old, an 11-year-old. So we get a lot of that, I'm just bored after you take them out on this fun adventure.

And so we have, you can't say that in our house. So go find something to do. Go find something to do. Let me know.

Have fun. Explore. Bring the dog outside. Those kinds of things.

Yeah, that's right. We try not to do that. Now I'm bored. You ready?

Well, okay. I don't know what else we can say about all this, huh? Or living. And what you do for fun can really make a difference in whether you consider yourself to be getting bored with what's going on.

You can always look forward to another aspect of what you're doing in your life, too. Work hard, play hard. Live by it. I like that.

Go out and do something that you wouldn't normally do to make life happen with your board, right? Yeah. Let's get that in there. Maybe you want Sally to cover a certain topic, you can send that to us at info at thegiftedlife.org.

In every episode of the Gifted Life, we honor a hero. Today's hero is Brittany Segura. And we hear from Brittany's family. Soul of a gypsy, heart of a hippie, spirit of a fairy.

Brittany was born on May the 26th of 1993. She left this Earth on March the 11th of 2018. Although our hearts were broken, she knew long ago that she wanted to be an organ donor and because of that she lives on in others. She left behind family and friends, especially her beautiful little girl Natalia, who already talks with us about being an organ donor like her mother.

She will always be a special soul in our hearts. We will never let her memory go and we will promote the importance of being an organ donor in her memory. Fly high our gypsy soul and special hero. And now we pause and say thank you to Brittany for the gift of life.

In today's question and answer a segment, do I have to register as a donor or can I just tell my family what I want to happen when I die? Actually, the answer is both. That's the best avenue because oftentimes, Laurie, in these situations, families are having trouble just processing basic information. Oftentimes they're going without sleep for a couple of days, especially an organ donation.

It's a sudden event in those situations. It's not something that's been expected for a long time and then giving them time to prepare mainly. So if they're just trying to process basic things, remembering the conversation you might have had a year, two years, six years ago usually isn't something that's easy to do. So the best thing to do is both.

Register as a donor and then also let your family know that way it's completely covered both from both angles. Good information, Joey, for everyone to know. Thank you, Sal. Well, you're certainly welcome.

And if you have a question or you'd like to share your story, you can reach out to us on social media, email us at info at thegiftedlife.org or you can even give us a call on that number is 504648347. We'd really like to hear from you. Leave us a message. We look forward to hearing from you.

And that'll do it for episode 109 of The Gifted Life. Yes, absolute thanks to Sharon and Cheryl, the Sharon and Cheryl show. Straight talk, Sharon, Cheryl. It was fantastic.

They're very animated. What a great episode. All right, what a great episode. You know, for them to be able to tell us what got them into the field and then talk about all the myths and how things have changed over the years and sometimes how they stayed the same.

And you know what's really fun is to have worked with these ladies throughout my entire time here at Loma. And some of the times we've shared was in office space sharing. Yeah. Funny funny funny funny and they're still funny.

That's the best part about all that. They never get bored with Sharon and Cheryl. And so passionate all these years later, obviously, they're our family, our volunteers. We're all family there.

So hopefully you're inspired to say yes and become a registered organ donor. If so, register me.org. And we do hope that you go out and do something you wouldn't normally do to help us make life happen. Thanks for being part of our team.

Thanks for listening. We'll talk to you again. This is a production of the Louisiana Organ Procurement Agency or LOPA. The gifted life is hosted by Lori Steele, Joey Buudrow and Sally Gentry.

Our executive producer is Kirsten Hines. Producer is Shalom Caraway. Intern is Rebecca Rannam. And we are recorded, engineered and mixed in our Covington, Louisiana studio by Troy Perez.