Oh, and welcome to the gifted life podcast where we have conversations about organ tissue and eye donation. I'm Lorraine Seale. And I'm Joey Boudreau. And we have some exciting news to share here on the gifted life.
Number one, Joey, had the opportunity to watch a recipient. One year out, sign up for college, something she never, ever thought she'd be able to do. So that's pretty cool. And she's going into the nursing field and she wants to work in the transplant world.
So that's pretty awesome itself. Got to watch another recipient, surprise her son for his birthday with a precious puppy. It's actually on our Facebook page, donate life, Louisiana. His name is Owen.
Owen. He's a Sheltie and he's wearing a blue and green tie. I mean, it just all comes together full circle, right? So that's about the opportunity to watch a donor mom rally the troops to honor her hero for the upcoming race, the Robley Run for Life.
So just inspiring. These stories are happening all around us and we want you to help us get the word out. It only takes that one person. You can find us on iTunes or your favorite podcast app.
And then on Facebook, we're donate life, Louisiana, also Instagram and Twitter. But a lot of things that we talked about, you can see and experience, share your stories through these social media outlets as well. And then we always have info at lopa.org. So if you want to see something covered here, let's do it.
In the news today, we will be talking about lots of events coming up in October. So get your pins ready. Awesome. Yeah, write it down.
And to one of our good partners, our one of our physician champions at our local hospital. And in our community segment, what do you get when you mix a Pulitzer prize winner and an Olympic champion donation gold, baby? You like that? Yes.
Thank you. And hey, it's hurricane season and house technology helping. We'll let you know. We'll also honor a hero and take your questions here on the get to life podcast.
Okay. I have my pen and my paper. Do you, Joey? Yes, I do.
So many of it's coming up in October. We hope that you save the day. We hope that there's something out there that interests you that's close to you that maybe you'll volunteer for help us spread the word. We would love it.
Okay, the first Saturday in October, we have the Robble A Run for Life and it's a pretty big deal. It's our fifth annual, which is pretty cool. So we're teetering at about 500. We hope to talk that and the amount of support that we get.
But registration is open. We're looking for sponsors, runners, teams. I mean, you can even walk it. There's free jambalaya and lots of fun.
And of course that's in Baton Rouge, that's in Rouge area. But if you are from the northern part of the state, we have a second chance car truck and bike show and that's going to be in the memory of Tommy Curry. It's going to be located in Rustin. The backstory, Laurie, is that he received a kidney transplant at the age of 12 and it provided him an additional 25 years of life.
And when he turned 37, he went to kind of give back and his big passion was cars. So he was in the process of putting on the second chance car truck and bike show. And unfortunately, he passed and his family decided they knew how important this was to him. They decided to take it on and continue in his legacy.
And they picked it up and put it on. And they're now in their fourth year of putting this fundraiser on. And it's in honor to benefit Loba. Celebrating him and his dreams.
And it's all about exactly celebrating Tommy Curry. And that is the first weekend in October as well. Then we have Justin Harrison's Golf for Life, which is the 12th of October. And of course, this is in honor of hero Justin Harrison.
If you go to our Faces of Donation page, you can read a lot more of our heroes. And we featured him on a previous podcast and actually talked to Mom Libby. But I know that for Justin Harrison's Golf for Life, Joey's actually going for the scooter prize. That's right.
I don't know if you'll get it. But look. I'll be trying for it. And then, you know, at the end of the month, actually it's on Halloween is our trail run for life.
And that's going to be in Caron Crow in the Lafayette area. A little different. It's a little different. You know, most of the runs that are put on our road races.
So we decided last year, this is our second annual. We decided last year to put on a trail run. And it's through the most beautiful horse farms in Caron Crow, just north of Lafayette. It goes through the horse farms and it also goes through some wooded areas.
It's really neat. If you've gone to the rivalry run, you probably prepped yourself. You can come on over to the. Oh, yeah.
I like that. And of course, that's easy to remember. Halloween morning. But all of the information for these events and so much more can be found at loba.org.
Get involved today. We have reached the recovery segment of the gifted life podcast. And today we kind of take you inside our Lady of the Lake Hospital. It's located in Baton Rouge.
I am often in there talking to classes. I actually do a class with our Lady of the Lake State Police Mothers Against Drunk Drivers and those kinds of things to spread awareness about organ donation. But it's so good when you have somebody who basically lives at the hospital, one of those caretakers to kind of walk us through. So we have as a guest today, Dr.
Colin Abert, a pulmonologist at our Lady of the Lake who basically takes care of the sickest of the sick. Dr. Abert has been a physician champion for organ donation. Laurie, for over 10 years.
I've been doing it for that long. And he's been a huge help to us in our cause and given his family is the opportunity to save lives. So thank you very much for Dr. Abert.
Thank you and I appreciate the opportunity to stay happy with the order donation. And so you've been a big help to us as a physician champion, like I said, for over 10 years. But your connection to donation actually started much earlier, right? Yes.
Earlier in your residency? Yes. I was actually on call when we came back in my thinking was like in 1989, 1999, so much longer than the first heart transplant was being done and treated using out. And I was on call and I got the phone call to come in and take care of the patient that unfortunately was doing that.
And I was taking care of this patient at the same time. So this was the first heart transplant being performed there. And there was a lot of eyes upon us if you will. And so we were very intense on everything that was going on with the patient during that time post-brain death and before the active donation.
And that's when I got really so interested in the pathophysiology of taking care of these patients. So we pretty much had to react very fast on the lack of change in the patient getting worse very quickly. And so as a consequence, I stayed with the patient pretty much all night just to make sure that you weren't going to lose the patient if you will for this work or the transplant process. And so I guess it was about four, four, three in the morning and I spoke with the transplant surgeon and I've got down that news, Dr.
Moshin Hakim. And I came to me and we were talking and we were really free everything as far as taking care of the patient. And one of the time I guess was like, I don't look flyish in the morning. Because when I saw a patient that was kind of rambling in his family and we can wheelchair.
And it was very dramatic to me because you see this young man and his family is around him and he's obviously in pin stage heart disease. And it was a time when we had to swallow twice to move on. But once we got through that process and patient from now on to donation, that went home, got to stay came back there, that night, Jekyll, and really surprised that the patient, I can see the heart was feeling so much better. He was a late to his lord.
By the next morning he was off the ventilator, he was sitting up in the chair on the side of the bed. His feet were dramatically decreased in the demo. And about the next day he was riding on an exercise bicycle at the dead side. And that was a milestone in my career because it was just so drastic of an improvement in the process when a young man was 28 hours earlier to breathe.
Right. Very impressive. That is quite an amazing story for you at such an early period in your becoming a critical care physician that you were able to see and take care of both sides and be touched by both sides of the donation process. You saw someone who didn't survive and then at the same time you saw someone else, he was probably nearing his deathbed and within a 48 hour period being able to see that drastic transformation that took place.
That's pretty amazing. That's something that really changed my whole viewpoint on how beneficial donation can be for very, very sick patients. Even as clinicians from the organ donation perspective, but for society as a whole, we oftentimes look at doctors that we kind of think of you guys as robots in a way that you have to do your job regardless of the circumstances and you kind of have to put this kind of shield on you. But at the same time, you've worked with some of these patients, especially at our lady to late now as a critical care physician for days and sometimes weeks trying to save their life and then of course work closely with the families.
It has to be very taxing and emotional, almost a grieving thing for you guys on that end. It is because we do put a lot of time and effort into trying to save patients. That's what we go through our fellowships for our study so much about being able to provide the optimal care in the right amount of time so that we can work some of these catastrophic processes. But they're just things sometimes since patients, they're too sick and they don't respond like you would want them to do.
And sometimes it takes a while for these transitions to occur. And we're going to have the bedside with the family and we're going through the discussions of the plans. One thing that's going to happen, the hope is going to happen and sometimes it just doesn't fall through. It is publishing and taxing on everybody.
One just the positions of the nurses, the doctors, the patients, the court performances. So it's a whole team approach and it's a team win or it's a team struggle. I've worked with you guys for quite some time for 13 years very closely with our lady in the lake and you guys are some of the best in the country at what you do. And you kind of touched on it that sometimes that patient has suffered such a severe injury.
You guys do everything in your power to save that patient. But then there are times where the swelling in the brain is just too much to overcome and that patient expires and then it becomes declared brain dead. And then there's the transition from there for that family. Basically of what's going to happen next.
So can you talk me a little bit through that period and the transition to donation? After the families make that determination that they want to proceed with the donation, the patients still have to be taking care of appropriately. But now we need to start thinking about how many patients, why it's going to affect if we can go through with the donation process. So that's the hard part and especially hard for a lot of younger physicians and get takers who are sitting there and they have all of their emotions and their efforts and they're tired and they're going through this and they have a feeling that they lost the battle.
But if they can transition that frustration into a feeling of hope for so many other people, then you have a better chance of meaning will be all about it. I've had the pleasure of going with donor families into our lady of the lake to speak to certain groups, to speak to those caregivers. We also bring in recipients and you are just the nicest guy. I have to tell you.
I always love the smile. We know you're wearing the white coat and what you do. But I had a donor mom, Joey. She just grabbed hold of him and she just didn't want to let go.
And he let her hug him for a very long time. And I think he enjoyed it as well because there was a condition there. I do love what I do. I do love taking care of the patients and important that responsibility is actually taking care of the families too.
I know you're basically there around the clock with the recipients are there as well. And I see you watching them tell their stories and how far they've come. I know that you're in awe of the whole donation process as a whole. But being the physician champion and kind of knowing how things run at the lake, just in general hospital personnel, why would some be resistant to donation from your perspective?
It's such a personal decision that people have to come to an agreement within their own morality to be honest with you. We have physicians that have trouble with portions of the donation like the DCB. They don't want to do that. And I respect that.
And I'm glad they're honest with us. But it's really up to each individual person. And if they have questions, I'm willing to sit down at a time and discuss and come to an application to come down to these people have an ounce not doing donation or doing donations. It's a different, it's a whole different environment.
It's a whole different world. Just focusing on taking care of who is bringing that and not focus on the whole picture of who we're going to be able to otherwise, if it be very taxing and you won't be a very, very happy person if that's all you can see. And we're going to try to help our physicians and nurses on a risk of their purpose with some of those issues as they go along with us. Well, I think that's what makes you stand out and that's what makes our Lady of the Lake stand out.
I'm always impressed each year we do a butterfly release to honor the donors from the lake for the previous year. And the amount of staff that shows up to stand side by side with these donor families and to honor these silent heroes and then to see the reveal of the donor wall which is a permanent place in hospital. It's just incredible. Yeah, to be honest with you, I'm very proud of those.
I'm sorry to push those as you speak up because we've worked so long and so long to bring the awareness of coordination as a living entity within our own organization and our community. And it's just, it's real touching to go to the butterfly release and see the number of family members that are there. And our staff at Newcom, there's a large number of staff people that aren't able to go, that are just as hard as the ones that do show up. So it's a very warming feeling.
I'm a lot of the sound very proud of them. Proud of our efforts on the coastal side. And we've been supported by the lake and kept them all out. And so I think it's been a win-win situation over the last number of years, 10 years or so.
One of the lake also joins with us out in the community to help spread the word. So you guys really go above and beyond and we appreciate you kind of acting as spokesperson today for the lake, but also being our physician champion for Oregon donation. We always take one person to make a difference and you were doing it. Well, thank you.
Thank you. Thank you so much, Dr. Abert. And, Joey, if you happen to be at our Lady of the Lake visiting a friend or someone like that, the donor wall is on the first floor of just past the chapel.
And you'll see all those silent heroes. You'll read their stories. You'll see their faces. It's right there for folks to see.
It's really, it's quite impressive. So we appreciate Dr. Abert for joining us. And if you have any questions of what you heard during that part of the podcast, info at lopa.org.
We've reached the community segment here of the gifted life podcast. And we are so pleased to have some powerful guests join us to talk about their role in donation and what they continue to do to help us save more lives. I want to introduce you to Jeffrey Marks. You've probably heard the name.
He was the youngest ever winner of the Pulitzer Prize for Investigator of Reporting, which was pretty awesome in itself. Less numerous other awards. And one of the things I read about Jeffrey was that his whole goal in life was to just try and make a difference in this world. Well, he's definitely helped us save lives in the donation world.
And we want to talk to Jeffrey about his connection to donation. So Jeffrey, we appreciate you joining us. Thanks for having me. I appreciate it.
So we want to hear about Wendy. We've read about her in your book, It Gets Dark Sometimes. But we want to hear kind of your journey. She was battling Hepatitis B.
And she's really the reason that you've adopted this cause and worked so hard to save more lives. Well, before we were calling me to the line up, I shared this really, really up on the marks. My little sister, my only sister, my best friend in this world, I was a blessing this year. In 1989, when we were only 22 years old, she'd be telling very sick, we had the Titus B.
We had to straighten her little very quickly. She went into a deep, great, full calm, back-to-the-point, we only thought she had only 24 hours to live. We had told this while standing over the hospital bed, going to the hospital bed, going to the hospital and just going to go. And the first and the only reason we would have got to that point was because of the horrible, surely-did-burners in this nation.
Something we've been working about until that time to kind of smack that in the face and very personally. And when I say, me, we're going to call our leaders here, he is what's for that whole journey, right from the start. He and I have to be working together on a book at the time, he was following us very closely. It was really amazing when he joined at the hospital, not only to be whatever he could for Wendy, but people that we could for the whole cause of working donations from transplantation.
That was really an honor, quite a bit, because we were learning about it at that clock was kicking in. And I remember that 24 hours clock ticking and then we were about three in the morning, and they're talking about it in the hospital. They're talking about this new company working at the West Side, Les. It's really interesting because I was actually traveling when Jen called me about Wendy, and I was aware of what was going on, because this is Karl of course.
And I was aware of what was going on, because Wendy had been ill, and actually anything happened keeping me abreasting what's going on, so I was actually out of town. And when he called me, I actually stopped what I was doing and headed to San Francisco, so it was a pretty amazing start. Never would I have thought that that call would have ended up with, like, you know, over 25 years, but after the two or four calls, it's so important after we know so little about. And guys, you know, just to let you know, you know, he's mentioned Karl, you know, as his friend Karl, who's, and this is the Karl, who was, I grew up watching him.
He's one of my all time favorites. He was actually one of the fastest, he was the fastest man in the world, and one of the greatest Olympians of all time, 10 time Olympic medal winner, nine time gold medal winner, what the Olympic, so thank you. No, you're a good title here. No, I'm awesome.
So we've got a lot of people, surprise winner and an Olympian, you know, so it's, what exactly is here? Yeah, what a team, especially for the donation. And you see what Wendy can do. Exactly.
And that's what I was going to ask. So can you tell me about how it must have been very helpless for you having a friend, you know, like Jeffrey and Wendy in such a need. So tell me about those times and how you felt during that period. Well, it's interesting.
I think the biggest thing was just the lack of knowledge. I mean, I just felt so ignorant about an issue that I should have known more about. That's really the biggest thing. And it's like, how do we not know this?
How do I not know more about this or understand this issue? You would thought that I would have met someone or something and just trying to catch up. And when I touched down and ultimately the entire family was there. So we're just one family in a little room just waiting on Pinden needles because it is Pindenetos.
You're waiting every second because five minutes from now they could say, oh, we have a liver. We move on. And then she says we go on. And that was kind of our whole thing to hope that that happened.
But the biggest issue for me was how can I have been so ignorant about this issue? And I know probably, especially at this time, and I know now because we've called on you today, but everybody I'm sure is asking you to endorse the product or get behind a cause. This one seemed like it was just very easy for you to put your celebrity toward it. So if you and Carl, if you and Jeffrey could talk about how that helped spread the word about donation not only on that night, but from that point on.
The great thing about having a name and it's a double story. Everyone knows you. And the family you're in this situation, everyone knows you. And not only that, but you also build goodwill with different people over the years and different entertainment people, different reporters because they asked for favors.
And so it's one of those things we call upon favors, but in reality, to them it wasn't really a favor because they didn't understand you as she's either. So when they heard that they were on board and that celebrity was able to get some attention to it. But at the end of the day, the attention I think that weekend was more so of speaking to other people because you can't just go out and say, hey, you know, shit in Oregon in here because obviously you know the system now, but we didn't know it then. So we just felt that that got the attention and maybe that's how it happened.
So Jeffrey, you talked about, and Carl talked about, you know, waiting on kind of on pins and needles. So can you go through the process of, you know, waiting and feeling so helpless and then all of a sudden getting that call and getting that second chance? Well, the pretty perspective is that the number of times there is well this being late 1989, it was supposed to be a weekend. And at that time, as Carl mentioned, we were just worried about the issue as we were going to say, we came to learn about 18,000 people in the country where they were trans-kind of some kind of background.
They tried to be able to go out and learn more than 22,000 now. So that puts it in perspective how this is going to be. What we learned very quickly because of the severity of one of the illness, you were so far gone in that deep grade for a corner, that it really puts you in the capital, the topic that the national rating is because of the severity of the illness. So, you know, the family and certainly Carl doesn't remember that family through that.
It's just so strange to realize that you're sitting there basically for lack of a better way to explain it, waiting for the right person to die because that's the only way that the liver transplant could be done at that time. So, it was a very strange, bizarre, hurt people, difficult, challenging, stressful, whatever adjective you want to put to it. The bottom line is that was my little sister and my best friend, and that the left-hand, that the one person said, all I could think about right then was, was this going to happen? Were you going to build on the back and you were unbelievably fortunate?
So tell us her story from that point on and the creation of the Windy Mark's Foundation that you both still continue to use to help save other lives. Well, you talked about Carl's celebrity guy, and the fact that there are so many different causes and commercial interests and different things that get involved with some of that Carl after the years. But I think that Carl had a different year, so mention him doing the winner of nine and the winner of the third medals, which was a big staggering number. But when I think about the first thing that comes to mind mind has nothing to do with those things.
We thought about someone who is moving people on the floor of the hospital later on right around the rest of us trying to make this happen and committing themselves to a cause. And then I think about how much space you had a community of all of them that I mentioned a few minutes ago. And now the decision you made right then, we said it to each other right then and the middle of the night. But whether or not one of these is something we're going to work on.
So once Wendy got better, once she got her transparent, once she got over the next few months, it was a very easy decision. Carl and Wendy and I decided together to follow up on that talk that we had in the hallway and decided before the foundation called the Dunby Mark's Foundation for Urban Dornay on it. So Carl, tell us about starting up this foundation and just really where your heart was at this point. Well, you know, it's so interesting.
Jeff and I talked about that and just seeing Windy and seeing the strength of her realize that we would do this like just said, which, Windy or not. And thank goodness it was with Windy and her leadership. I just felt compelled and it wasn't really a thing. I never really felt like a leader.
I just felt like I was we were on Windy's team and it was just something that she had to lead and we were following. So for me, I was in a quest to get more information, but also to find out. I didn't get out of the hospital and we set up the foundation and then we saw the numbers. It was just astonishing to me how little we knew and what we could do.
And so it just continued to grow. And when you have the situation, whether it was a transplant game you went to or talk, talk, talk to the video or a place where we went with Windy and back in the 90s bringing in all kinds of people like Bill. Bill Brown came in and we did a basketball program. We've done so many things and I've been able to do things I never would have done.
I never would have had a situation that never could have happened without Windy and going through this journey and meeting so many amazing people. Man, she sounds amazing the more we hear about her. And I know that you guys have done work in Louisiana and across the country with the Windy Mark Foundation. And Joey, I know that you will be jealous of this, but I got to hug Carl Lewis, along with probably a million other people who were in line.
But so Jeffrey teamed with LSU and the Windy Mark Foundation to spread organ donor awareness at this huge athletic event where Carl ties in oh so nicely. So that was just an amazing day, Jeffrey. We had an opportunity two years ago to work with the LSU baseball program on a very special day and working donor awareness day at Alex Fox, in the year in Baton Rouge. It was really neat because Carl and I got a million meringue and wave rhymes who was wearing a small baseball player for the LSU Tigers and they really spewed out a bad view.
And Carl came in and we had an opportunity to get a lot of different people involved in the LSU and also the broader community in Baton Rouge. And if anyone went back to New York State, and they knew that the crowd and excitement of the people in this really special that day because in addition to everything we did for donor awareness, Carl Lewis had a very special day of, I'll say, wearing out the first picture, which is really normal, but you can tell we're up and out of that. It was funny because we were talking, just talking about how you do this unique. We heard it the week before, the gymnastics team came out and they actually did cartwheels all the way to the catcher.
So I said, well, you know what, I'm going to take a something. So we get out there and they throw me the ball and announce me, it's all nice and I'm at LSU and it's interesting because LSU is a special place for me. I actually won an NCAA championship at LSU when I was in college at Houston. So it's always a special place to go back to that school.
And so I got ready to wind up and then I went down, come to your market set and ran the ball in and crowd were created totally. Everyone was told no one knew what was going on and it was just like, you got to be kidding me. And you know what, I got on sports there. It was cool to experience it live and in person.
I want to tell you, watching Carl and Jeffrey work together, you can see how a country can rally around these two and cause. So gracious, there were lots of people who wanted to take pictures with Carl Lewis. It was hot. He was dressed a nice button down and the people just kept coming and he just had that smile in his face and was just very gracious to everybody.
Jeffrey helped us set up, donate life, material, these gates to get just the word out as much as possible. So you guys make a really good team. I can tell that you guys are friends but getting behind this cause, you're just a dynamic duo for sure. Well thank you.
I can tell you that it's very easy and very unique that that's especially when you get to work with people like them on a mobile because we have a world history with mobile. So, going all the way back to the early 90s and going with reference to that driven for donors basketball, going to be in the Superburn back and early on before and we were even fortunate enough to be involved in the first state wide-durning. We had to see them in conjunction with MOCA. It's just a special organization and we've had opportunities to work with a very high percentage of the APOs around the country.
And I can tell you this and I'm not only standing with people today but there's no doubt in my mind that MOCA is one of the absolute best in the country. So it's very special for us and we try to get to work with you guys. And we appreciate you always including us. One of the things that we recently talked about on a podcast was Alex Bregman wearing the donate life green bracelet.
That was an afternoon phone call from Jeffrey Teloba. Can you get bracelets our way? We have this unique opportunity. I love when Jeffrey calls Lori.
I have a unique opportunity. And it always goes on. It's very, very strange because you're a part of it. You and your husband were kind of left to meet me.
And a parking lot of the things that I could wear to the make the front of the front of the front. So, if Lauren Pritzker was watching the Metaphone for the next time, we've got her on there. But we're kind of up to get those PS and two guys on the baseball team. And Alex bled me to start shirts like this last year and then amazing on their man's views.
And I was going to get the phone plates and wear them because you can end up with these and that's your organization running right now. But they're on my front shirts back. They're somewhere on that team. And at that time, I'm going to just call it because they're watching.
They're watching. And I was going to do that. It's where that bracelet and wore it proudly. So, it's last year when I left you to get the game to put them into the college world series.
And it was very, even after that, the game was drafted. Number two, and the nation and maybe baseball draft. There was local bracelet. They had to be signed to contract with the basketball.
Go back and look around for those. They just kept playing it and wearing it. At that time, I was like, just for one day, you can do what I did. You can do what I did.
You can do what I did. You can do what I did. Well, that just shows me that's a guy that deserves the best because he has really gotten into the cause. Now, let's talk about something that you've been up to.
You have a new book that's going to be released September 15th. It's called Walking with Tigers, the Collection of LSU Sports Stories. It's not really about games, but about people and life. So, Joey, he has this release that's coming up.
He has this book coming up. And he has this huge release party. And then he says, I always try to include organization awareness. What can we do to make that happen?
Amazing. So, inviting us in. We love the cooperation. We love that we can call and get you and Carl Lewis on the phone to try to save more lives.
And, you know, just amazing. Welcome to the lecture. And, Carl, any parting words for Joey? This is one of the athletes here?
I'm passing my problem, Carl. But what I say, you know, look, I'm 54. We all want to be happy. You know what, the nice version of the mean version, the nice version is watch it to eat and watch me and make sure you get some exercise.
The mean version is put a mirror by your shower. That is a mean version, Carl. I'm sticking with my. I'm sticking with my.
You're talking about one, so you eat really really really bad. Yeah, that's right. I can't watch it right before I guess in my mouth. That was really interesting.
I remember you were a bit un-verbal. That was incredible. That was incredible. It's really interesting because I think that this is really an interesting fight.
You know, we were obviously talking about donation and why even people do it. You know, and now I'm a coach at the University of Houston. So I deal with these young people every single day. And it's a struggle.
It's a struggle to deal with them, to motivate them, to be the best they can be, to get their, you know, to say, hey, this is why it's important to build a class and get your education. This is why it's important to work hard, even if you may not be able to get a champion one day. And some of them will make it, some of them will not. It's to me, a parallel, a struggle that we have every single day with order donation because I look at the list and I look at the fact that, you know, there are people on the basis are to eliminate the list.
And so it's something that we have a constantly fight to me. It's like I'm coaching another athlete and I think this is wonderful to have us on here to talk about it because we can all be coaches. And this fight to end the problem and the shortage of organs for people that actually need them. So let's all be a coach.
And let's all coach the family, let's coach our friends, our contemporary. Anyone we can understand that there is a shortage and we can all be coaches. And when we do win the fight and when the race starts, make one day, then we have to keep coaching and make sure we don't go back. That's good.
You can tell you're a little instructor there. Can you imagine if Carl Lewis was your instructor? Oh man. That's awesome.
I tell you, you know, the words were beautiful there. And we really, really appreciate, we talk about on this podcast that it only takes, you know, the power of one. And with you, Carl and you, Jeffrey, and of course, Wendy, the hero, you guys have touched so many lives, so many more than you can ever imagine the struggles that we have when we are talking to a family that's, you know, at this acute grieving stage. When they know about it, when they've read stories like yours and Wendy's and heard you guys speak, it makes such a difference on them because the decisions already been made.
You know, when anyone hears you guys speak or of course reads the book, they make that decision to say yes. And that's one less decision that they have to make at such a difficult time. And I really thank you guys for all the hard work that you've done in making life happen. Well, you know what, Carl, you make something that's so important and I'm glad you did and changed us from that.
So I'm not saying earlier that all the donors, the donors in my family, because they were the viewers. And they came up with a great name for them. One of you called them the Farrant Heroes, which I just thought was beautiful. And she wrote a pass, she brought that bunch of things.
The Farrant Heroes, the people who make the decision you have to courage and openly are the ones who did the gift of life to some of the others. So those are the people that will like to hold up and celebrate. Y'all are amazing. We love our partners.
Thank you, Jeffrey Marks. Thank you, Carl Lewis. Thank you very much. All right, we talked about Jeffrey Marks.
If you go to Jeffrey Marks.org, there is a book on there. It has all the information about him, but it gets dark sometimes. And you can see the story and see the pictures of Wendy, the hero that we talked about today. And if you have any other questions, you want more information?
We are in contact with these fine fellows, our dynamic duo, info at loba.org. Time for technology. And let me tell you, cool little program here, hurricane season number one. Folks are remembering Hurricane Katrina, devastated areas, right?
Especially New Orleans area. Loba had to uproot. You remember this, right? Obviously.
I was on a case in Lafayette, actually, during when Hurricane Katrina was making landfall. And actually when the mandatory evacuation took place, I was in communication with one of our coordinators in New Orleans out of the Madery office at the time. So he had to evacuate. And so at the time, our communication was terrible because none of our texts were going through, you know, folks everywhere.
We're jammed. It was the biggest problem. So we've realized from there that we've got to create redundancies and we've got to always have backup plans in place anytime any disaster, but obviously being from Louisiana if hurricanes should make landfall. Yeah, we have learned from it and we have moved forward.
And we have Michelle Callum joining us. She is Loba's Clinical Support Center Education Coordinator. Hey, Michelle. Hi.
So we're just talking about Hurricane Katrina, the anniversary, but we're in storm season. So we always got to watch for that. What happens if we lose power during Katrina? You know, we learned some hard lessons.
Loba is fortunate. We do have a program. It is a virtual PDF. And I'll start off first with what the PDF actually stands for.
It is private business exchange. It is a computerized private telephone network. It's used within a business throughout the network. And it also extends to multiple locations.
So we never can detect when or where a hurricane is going to hit. But we do have some guidelines. So what the Call Center will do is we might go to one area or we might split up. About two years ago we lost some power here.
And I was up north in Illinois taking care of my dad. And so I was able to log in through PBX, just for a few hours, kind of helping out the Call Center, keeping our referrals going, allowing the issue and organ donation referrals to come in. I mean, you can be anywhere logging in. As long as your phone or your computer is set up with the business telephone line.
And then each employee is assigned there to think an individual extension. So the hospital never has to change their processes. They can call that number and it routes right through PBX. The employee logs in either on a computer or if our computers are down.
They can use their smart cell phone. So none of our processes change. And a lot of times our outside customers or the affiliates don't even realize that we have computer or phone landline being down because it allows those referrals to come in 24-7. And I like to say there's an app for that.
There's a free app for that. And so annually we do this competency testing. I have each of the call center login on their computer to make sure that they remember their extension and their password because it's not very often that we have to use this. And then we also have them log into their phone.
And then that way we know at any time if we should lose power, we have a backup plan for them that we are hospitals and corners and your home can still contact us. So virtual PBX, lots of benefits. Lots. And it also has a true ACB queuing.
And what ACB stands for is that automatic call distribution. So if all the lines are busy, like all of our cell phones, all the employees are on their cell phone. And then so that caller coming in can listen to the music and then whoever hangs up first, it automatically goes to the one that is free. So it's just, it's really neat that it's an excellent backup cell phone system.
Awesome. Technology helping in the donation world. We appreciate it, Michelle. You're welcome.
Thank you. Have a good one. All right. You too.
Bye bye. Thank you very much. That was Michelle Kellum, our Clinical Support Center Education Coordinator. Okay, Joey.
It's our honoring a hero segment. Today we're going to highlight Austin James Shoemaker. Grew up around Barksdale Air Force Base in Bozier City. Loved it.
Loved the air show. Attended it every year. Mom says he left to sit in the planes and talk to the pilots. And when he was six, so just six, he knew he wanted to be a pilot, which I think is pretty cool.
Mom says he helped her teach Sunday school at Bellaire Baptist Church. He liked to help others, left to cheer people up. And he had the wonderful gift of encouragement. I just like the way she says that.
He had the wonderful gift of encouragement. He graduated from airline high school, went to Louisiana Tech in aviation. So he did pursue his dream of becoming a pilot. He was six weeks away from graduation when on March 9th, 2008, his life was cut short because of a car accident.
Before he left to go to college, Mom says he told her and dad that he wanted to be an organ donor. If anything ever happened to him, he wanted to help others live. It's pretty powerful right there. So they honor his request by donating his organs to help others.
And they are so proud of him and his decision to donate. And so the picture that we have of him is in a uniform, but you can tell he had the military pilot look on there. And just a hero, not only mom and dad dies, but ours as well. So face is a donation on loba.org.
You can see Austin. You can read his story from Mom Austin James Shoemaker. Let's pause right now in the podcast just to say thank you to Austin for the gift of life. In this part of the podcast, we love to hear from you.
We want to answer your questions. We want to know what's on your mind, what you're thinking. If something has blocked you from signing up about donation, let's talk about it. We want to inspire those healthy conversations.
So Joe, this question came in info at lopa.org. You can hit us there anytime. My husband and I are registered, have discussed donation. But we were wondering, can we register at children before they get their driver's licenses?
And the answer to that is yes. You can register them online just as you can register yourself online. Now, of course, Lori, in the state of Louisiana, you still have to be 18 for it to be legally considered first person authorization or legally binding. So you would still as a parent have to give authorization up until 18 years of age, but it doesn't mean that you can't register them.
So they can still be registered whether they're going to the DMV and getting their license for the first time in 15 or 16 or 12 years old. And they may have seen you in an education doing a presentation and said, hey, mom, I want to register, you can register them online. That's right. We just encourage you to keep having those conversations.
I always tell my kids to go home and look at mom and dad's license. Do they have a heart? Why or why not? Let's talk about it, right?
And tell them what the loud blonde lady told you today, right? So hopefully they take some of those facts and figures home. But the answer is yes. So if you're at that point where you do want to sign up and you want to sign your kids up as well, so you can do it at lopa.org.
There's a place there to register. Just click. We try to make it as easy as possible. Also, you can visit DonateLifeLA.org.
Do it today. And this podcast has come to a close already, but we had so much fun. I think I've never seen Joey Starstruck or speechless. I don't think anybody's seen him speechless, but he was for a brief period because we talked to your athletic idol today and so many more.
Yes, we did. We had Starstudded Cassidy. We had, of course, one of our physician champions in Dr. Colony Bear, who's been so instrumental in organ donation process at Alleid Lake in Baton Rouge.
And just a nice guy. Great guy. And then, of course, we had Jeffrey Marks. And as you mentioned, Carl Lewis, my childhood idol, to meet one of the greatest of all time.
I took a picture with him. It's on Facebook. I'm just... I'm Megan 2013.
Thank you. And all they've been doing with Wendy Marks Foundation. And then, of course, I own Michelle Callum. Can't forget her.
And teaching us about PBX and how that helps us during the disasters in hurricane situations. Man, we just learned so much. And we are moving forward. We have much more to come here on the Gift of Life Podcasts.
But please spread the word. Let folks know that we're out there. And again, if you want to hear something or you want a presentation that's in your classroom or in your church or your civic group, info at lopa.org, or go to our website, lopa.org. It's really a one-stop shop.
So thanks for listening. Here on the Gift of Life.