Oh, and welcome to the gifted like podcast where we have conversations about Oregon, Dissue, and I Donation. I'm Marie Steele. I'm Sally Chintry. And I'm Bo Crater.
What's up? What'd you say? Where's Joey? Sounds like Joey.
Then look like Joey there. No, he doesn't. Handsome though. Hey Bo, how are ya?
Oh, I'm good. I'm good. Actually, I'm filling in for Joey this week. He had a prior engagement and I got a phone call.
He's playing hooky. Oh yeah. He's playing hooky. I know what's going on.
Yeah. He just didn't feel like being here today. Oh yeah. I got a phone call late last week basically saying that they went through all the list of people coming in and filling in.
You're the lucky pig. Yeah. You're the chosen one, Bo. That's it.
Well, we appreciate you coming in. We know it's a little different than what you're used to doing. Bo is a local lifesaver. He's an advanced practice coordinator.
So, mighty fine child there. But what is it that you do? Well, basically my job is to make sure we maximize all the gifts given by each donor family in cooperation with all of our staff. Yeah.
So, well, we appreciate you taking time out to be here to help us spread the word about donation. There is lots going on. Sally, anything new happening in your life? Oh, I'm so excited to let everyone know.
Especially you, Laurie. Yes? Yes. And I just, this has been since August 12th, 2016.
Bloodwaters basically took over your home. Yes, over a month. So, all that happening. I was not able to get back in.
So, I got out what I could and demolished the house and I bought a manufactured home, which is now on the site. Yes. And that Saturday I brought home my horses and me. Oh, and she smiling.
You see that smile though? Yeah. But let me tell you, you know, we've seen lots of folks going through all these struggles, lots of memories and all this stuff. And you just have the best attitude.
You got a plan. You stuck to the plan. We're seeing progress. That's amazing.
And part of that too is, I think, being in the profession I'm in, I could use a lot of excuses for not moving forward, but I couldn't think of any. I couldn't stay stuck. I had to move. So, you were an inspiration to me, ma'am.
And I'm so happy we're going to have a housewarming party at Sally. Is everybody invited? Yes indeed. Oh, you too.
All right. I'll be there. There you go. And so, Joey is not here.
I think he's still celebrating. We had the Roble Run for life. And he was a top finisher, though. Pretty exciting, right?
Wow, that's impressive. I didn't take him as a runner type. I appreciated him being able to come out to that event. It was an inspiration.
Hey, there's lots to get to on this episode of The Gifted Life. We're focusing on Oklahoma today, the who, when, where, why of OPOs? You don't want to miss it. And also, we're going to be talking about Decision Week there in Oklahoma.
We'll give you all the details here shortly. And in our family support segment, this is going to be a two-part series. We're going to discuss what is addiction and how it affects potential donors and their families and personally. Yeah, I'm also honor a hero as we do in every podcast.
And we want folks to hear it. We want you to help us spread the word. So, though, I'm assuming you've listened to an episode or two of The Gifted Life. Absolutely.
I use actually my iTunes app and I've downloaded all 43 episodes. Oh, and so your favorite podcast personality would be? Oh, no, that's a tough one right there. You put me on the spot.
So what do you think about Sally's performance? Sally's great. So, of course. Joey's, um...
You're looking to take a spot. Yeah, I mean, he does okay. He does okay. Well, awesome.
Well, we appreciate you being here. We appreciate you downloading the Gifted Life podcast. It's easy to find. It's anywhere.
You can also find at local.org.org. A lot of what we talk about here. You can find on our social media pages. So on Facebook, we're Donate Life, Louisiana, Twitter, and Instagram.
We're at Donate Life, LA. Getting ready for the Robler Run for Life. Click in and sharing and tagging. I was a good thing.
But listen, we want to hear from you. We want this to be interactive and we have a hotline now. So that means we're legit though. You didn't know that.
That means... Absolutely. And for those of you who do not know, our hotline number is 504648347. We might even play your message on our podcast.
So give us a call. And, Bo, this is where Joey usually sings the jingle for the number. Oh, really? I missed that when I downloaded them.
Oh, that's more kind of video. Alright, 5046483477. Be a part of the Gifted Life. Lots to get to you guys ready.
Yes. Here we go. And this segment we are talking about Oklahoma and the great things going on there. We have invited President and CEO of LifeShare, Jeff Wurlowski to join us now.
Hey, Jeff. Hi, how you doing? From what I heard, Oklahoma is okay. We are pretty excited.
We have a lot of great things going on in terms of donation and in terms of saving lives in the great state of Oklahoma. Yeah, so LifeShare created back in 1986 and has just been moving forward ever since. So tell us about some of those exciting things you've got going on. We know you have some impressive numbers that are coming out when it comes to saving lives.
How are you doing all of this? Right. It's really undertaken completely into that point. The organization was about 25 years old.
We just celebrated our 30th anniversary this past year. And so as we undertook our second quarter century, we really set out to take on a new strategic direction. And so we have focused really on a couple of areas. One of those is relationship building in the community and really redoubling our efforts to work well with our donor hospitals, our transplant centers and all of the agencies that are of importance to the donation process.
And secondly, to raise the profile of the organization in the community in general, the systematic and aggressive plan of attack to increase our public awareness campaigns, to increase the knowledge of life shares and organization and the important work we do. And we've partnered with a lot of really wonderful organizations in our community, including the Oklahoma City Finder, which is our MBA team, both the University of Oklahoma and Oklahoma State University Sports Departments and Oklahoma City Dodgers, which is the AAA Baseball affiliate of the LA Dodgers. And through all of those, we've been able to really reach a lot of people. Last year, we made over 45 million media impressions in the state that has a population of about 3.8 million, so we are very visible.
That is exciting. And I mean, yeah, those partners, like you can't go wrong and how great of them to join in for this important cause. The result of all of this, Jeff, has been an upswing in activity for your organ procurement organization. So tell us about that.
Let's focus on that. Yeah, so 2013, we're really years and starting in 2014, we averaged roughly 90 donors a year. In 2014, we did 141 with up from 89 in 2013. And in 20,000 just two years, since transplanted, we've seen a similar growth increasing from an annual number of about 275 organs transplanted to last year in 2015 when we transplanted 479 organs.
So we've more than doubled or roughly doubled both the number of donors being recovered and nearly doubled the numbers transplanted from this. In 2016, it looks like it will be our third record recovery year in a row. Wow. We're forecasting to be at about 180 donors and transplanted.
Well, Jeff, that's really impressive to basically double your donors in just two or three years like that. I mean, that increases the amount of lives saved through organ tissue and eye donation. Is there any one or two things that you saw coming on in 2012 that you knew would change and make this kind of growth? Absolutely.
And the result of that is we do this in a lot of nontraditional places, smaller hospitals, more rural hospitals, in units within the big referral centers that maybe it is we're not just looking at. I think the last thing that was really important for us in turn. Excuse me for jumping in here. When you mentioned Family Services, I did implement our Family Services program here in Lopa about 16 years ago.
And we found that contact with donor families was just instrumental in helping them understand more about what their loved one had been able to do to help others. Is that what you're finding or do you all have multiple staff that do phone calls or letters or can you tell me a little bit more about your family services? Certainly. And so they're loved one or that during the process of losing a loved one.
Right. And we take that all the way through as long as they need us to be for them. An important component of that too is, and I think it's in the strong message to our families. The family is considered a donor family because of the pursuit, not because of the actual outcome of the donation.
Yes. In other words, if a family chooses to donate it for whatever medical reason the donation ultimately cannot come to pass, they will still be supported by our organization as a donor family and receive thank you and follow up information. One great example of that are in the neonatal. We've had several cases where the parents know the child is not going to survive at birth and through canceling between us and the neonatal professionals and the OBGYN professionals caring for the mother and the child, they pursue a nation as a possibility but not knowing until the child is born whether they'll be large enough, whether they will arrest an amount of time that allows for organs to be recovered.
And those families may end up only being able to donate to research and not transplant and we treat them the same way their donor families they made the decision to give. And it's so good to be supportive of all these families and I would suspect that might be part of the increase too in the amount of donors that you all have because of hearing what great support system you have for them post-recovery or post-consent. Is there any other process that you're using to find how to use and maximize your opportunities? Yeah, it's a really exciting thing for us.
It's been a wedding of our quality systems with our operations folks. We have dramatically increased our commitment and investment in quality systems. We literally review every vented referral for potential of clinical hospital development and quality staff whether there is a potential for a single organ or more to be transplanted from any vented referral that we receive or any ventilated patient that we identify on death record review and that has allowed us to really identify places where more education and more presence will increase donations. The ultimate result has been that we are doing donors now in hospitals that hadn't ever had an organ donor.
Hadn't had an organ donor in over 10 years. We have one relatively small hospital in our service area in the very northern part of the state that had two DCD donors in a week that had never had an organ donor before. And by systematically reviewing potentials would have gone unidentified and un-recovery. We appreciate you taking the time to share with us.
We are impressed by those numbers and the lives being saved because of the hard work that you guys are doing. You know guys, he mentioned neonatal donation. We've been learning about that here on the podcast. There's actually a new section on our website, lova.org.
You can go there and check it out. And Jeff, for you, you talk about reaching out to these families and supporting them. We actually had a voicemail on our podcast hotline from a donor mom who has great things to say about life share. And we're going to share that with everyone on this podcast episode.
So we appreciate the work that you do. Keep it up bud. Thank you very much. Thank you all for the opportunity to share our experience.
Wish everybody who's listening well and anybody who wants to reach out and talk to us more, feel free to pick up the phone and call. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you.
Jeff Welsky with life share out of Oklahoma. Okay, guys, it is a big week. Thanksgiving, right? How was the turkey?
I cooked. Still cold. Still cold. Still cold.
So what's that voice? Did we hear that? Oh, that is Miss Katie Smith while we were putting our feet up and two full on turkey. Miss Katie was working.
Working. She is with life share of Oklahoma. She's the director of marketing and communications. And this is a big week, not only because it's a holiday.
It's decision week for Oklahoma. Correct. You're correct. What does that mean?
Well, decision week is actually an Oklahoma only campaign which life share kicks off everything we've done for about 20 years. And what it is, is we encourage all Oklahomaans to make the decision to register as an Oregon eye and tissue donor and then to share their decision with their family when they're together celebrating this holiday week. It's an opportune time to have that important discussion about donation. Absolutely.
This is the week to do it for sure. And then I heard you do something pretty neat with the newspaper inserts with all the ads for the up and downs. Yeah. Everybody, you know, it's Black Friday.
And so everybody is looking for their Black Friday ads and we put a new paper insert in over 650,000 newspapers across Oklahoma. Wait, wait, wait. Wait, wait, wait. Wait, wait, wait, wait, wait.
Wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait. Wait, wait, wait, wait. Wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait. We put 650,000 newspaper inserts for this week and they go out across the state.
So when everybody is, you know, going through looking for their Black Friday ads, we have a full piece in there about donation and it features donor stories, it features recipient stories, it talks about some of the myths about donation and just general education pieces. Right. You're talking about the heartstrings. I encourage everybody to be looking for that.
And if you didn't find it, for some reason in your newspaper, it will be on our website, which is lifeshareok.org and you should be able to find the insert there. Wow. And so you guys do media too. I'm sure you partner?
We have major media campaigns, so this is one of the two months in the year we do full-fledged media campaigns. The other being donate life month of course, but for decision week we do a major media campaign and do not only the newspaper insert, but we also do TV and radio media efforts and we do some website takeovers on different media outlets. And this year we're really fortunate, we've partnered with a couple of the famous Oklahoma coaches around the state to kind of be our spokespeople for the week. So we have Bob Stoops, Lon Kruger, who's the basketball coach at the University of Oklahoma, and Sherry Cole, who is the women's basketball coach at the University of Oklahoma.
Bob Stoops is the football coach for those of you who do not know. And also we didn't forget about Oklahoma State University because those are big rivals here. And Mike Gendy, the head football coach at OSU, will be representing life share as well. So Katie, I'm assuming because you've been doing this for 20 years, you do 650,000 newspaper inserts, you have these partners, we're doing media.
It's kind of successful I would say. Yes, it happens. You know, I know you just spoke with Jeff and he was talking about all the change and the development that we've gone through at LifeShare and I've only been here at LifeShare for about three years and we've continued to see growth in our decision week efforts. So in 2014, we received about 9 million, almost 10 million media impressions from our decision week efforts.
And in 2015, we were able to more than double that with 17 million impressions. So hopefully 2016 proved to be even better than that. I think in the State of Oklahoma during decision week, if you don't hear about our efforts, then you're probably hiding under a lock. So you're working during a holiday week, but my goodness, think of the life save because of this extra effort that you guys do one week out of the year decision week.
And so how do you fund this because I'm thinking about in the community and getting all this together. We talked about the partners who put their face out front, but how do we make it happen? Well, so LifeShare is lucky to receive support every year for our decision week efforts and it comes from a group called OD, which is the Oklahoma donor education and awareness program. And so when individuals in our state go together, drivers license or renew their drivers license, they're also asked they would like to contribute money to organ donor education.
And the money that is contributed to that fund every year helps to support these efforts. So it's actually Oklahoma that are supporting these efforts and raising awareness about donation, which is good because we have 121,000 people nationwide on the waiting list and about a thousand of those are Oklahomans. Wow, that's amazing. Well, you do a great job.
That was fun. Decision Week in Oklahoma coming to a close, but we appreciate your sharing, your knowledge with us. That's what it's all about. And we actually received a voicemail.
It's telling Jeff from one of your donor moms out there who just appreciates everything that you guys do. So we're going to share that on this podcast as well. But Miss Katie, we thank you on Thanksgiving week, taking the time to talk to us here on the Gifted Life. Well, thanks for sharing our story and our effort.
Go get them, girl. In our family support segment today, we are starting a two part series on addiction. I actually am very interested in learning about addiction because we've seen a big increase in the number of referrals we're getting due to drug overdoses. So I think we're going to take a look at what is drug addiction and how it affects our donors.
What I'd like to explain for our listening audiences, addiction by definition is a factor condition of being addicted to a particular substance thing or activity. And, you know, this can cover a wide range of behaviors that probably all of us may have. But I think the main thing that we're looking at here is, again, as you mentioned, the upper eyes in the number of referrals of folks. And I think what happens is that for some folks, I'd like to throw this out to begin with though that drug addiction is really a complex disease.
And for people who think that people just choose to use drugs like moral principles or willpower and they can quit any time, I think probably you have seen this having a clinical background, but this is not always the case. That what we find is that people not really sure reasons behind why people become addicted. It can be genetic. It can be environmental, you know, peer pressure, this sort of thing.
But for many people, the problem is that they may want to quit, but then unfortunately they can't. And when they have been prescribed a painkiller medication by their physician and they're no longer getting it, they still have the pain, sometimes they're resorting to using. And what we see a lot of times, like you said, it can be genetic or different other environmental factors. There's a physiological factor involved with drug addiction that we see, especially focusing on the opiates where your body actually becomes dependent on the medication just to go about your daily activities.
Like you said, somebody that's had a back injury might take this lower tab or oxycontin pill to actually help with the pain. But through that time, what happens is that body's developed a dependence on it. So they just can't help it because on a cellular level, their body's telling them that they need this medication to continue. I think we've also found that drug addiction is one of the greatest health epidemics of our time.
And you've seen the number of overdoses that have more than doubled in the last six years that continue to rise. And just as you mentioned, more toward the opiate use, more Americans die from drug overdoses than in car crashes these days, which is really, I think, quite a telling story for what's happening for us as a nation, as a society, that we're now using more drugs to help us get through our daily routine. Definitely. We are seeing a rise in our referrals due to drug overdoses.
And it's not just Louisiana that's seen in this rise. And we talked to OPOs throughout the country. And every state is seeing an increase in overdoses, especially in the northeast. It's been a real problem.
I want to say, I think I've heard one in three of their referrals as usually due to some type of drug related injury. And I think also too, that when you look at what happens to the brain when a person takes drugs, that it's the reward circuit that it's flooded with a chemical dopamine. So the reward system controls the body's ability to feel pleasure and motivates a person to repeat those behaviors that makes them thrive. And they have difficulties then with interacting with, well, on the workforce, with their loved ones, with society in general.
And then instead of getting help, many people don't seek out help because they feel like they're judged or stigmatized or basically that they're worthless because that's been the message that's gotten over time that way you should be able to do something about this. Well, I think most people are doing their best to negotiate their environment every single day. Sometimes when you are hooked on something like this and you can't make it any better, people do have a tendency to feel worthless. Right.
And it is. It's a stigma. So, Sally, how do we start the conversation about addiction? Well, addiction is not just a choice or a moral failing or a result of bad decisions.
It is a medically proven disease. And I think it's just like diabetes or cancer or heart disease. It's life threatening. I've left untreated.
And so the way is to talk with our children, talk with maybe family members who that we might identify having these difficulties be very straightforward in talking with them about how this can affect their health, how this can affect their ability to get along with others. Or their school life. I think the more difficult thing for most of us is having those direct conversations because we think, well, maybe I might hurt somebody's feelings or what if I don't say it right or what does somebody think I'm talking to them and maybe I'm really not and they're feeling guilty then I feel guilty. I mean, you know, we come up with lots of excuses not to have straightforward communication with our families.
And I think maybe that right there is the first place to start. And then we have other resources that we will share later on in our next segment about how people can access that. I think that too, that addiction has no boundaries that people have all backgrounds, ages, races, genders, geographical locations. As you mentioned across the United States and I'm sure across the world that they are susceptible to this sort of epidemic when it's a feel good.
And I know that in the past I've worked with some folks that their main drive to get assistance was not through the substance abuse, but that was part of what was driving them to reach out and get help. And it's a very long and difficult process. But again, it's that communication factor that's all important. Oh my goodness, so I am involved.
I'm invested in this conversation more to come in the next episode of The Gifted Life. On the next episode, let's talk about resources, share some insights about how you can help in the epidemic related to opioid abuse. You want to hear something from Sally, I want her to explain a little bit more about what you just heard here today, info at Loba.org. It's that point in our podcast again where we'd like to honor a hero.
This week, it is out of Oklahoma. Yes, life share shares this story with us. It's coming from his parents, Carson Baker's parents, our hero. Carson Baker was born a fighter.
He began playing baseball, basketball, and football at four years old. His teams were compiled of kids who had grown to be his best friends through life. When entering junior high, he dedicated all his focus and drive to football, which was his favorite sport, who worked hard for what he wanted and began to privately train with the most elite group of quarterbacks in the country. When Carson was a sophomore in high school, he started as Bar City quarterback for the El Reno Indians.
His high school coach says he was the type of person coaches hoped to have in their programs. He was only a sophomore, but he was a great leader. He was the type of person everyone looked up to. Carson was not just an accomplished athlete, he was also a top student in his class.
He was on track as a sophomore to be valedictorian when he graduated. On March 5th, 2014, Carson was in a car wreck with six of his friends and was unable to recover from a severe head injury. His parents were faced with a question of Carson being an organ donor. They remembered a short conversation they had with him.
It was on a long drive to Hennessy, Oklahoma, where Carson expressed to his parents his wishes to be an organ donor. He knew being a registered organ donor could potentially save lives through his death. And when he received his license, he was adamant about registering his decision. Carson left a legacy for many in both life and death because of his unwavering character, his drive for excellence, and also his wish to save lives.
You can learn more about Carson and other stories of hope at lifeshareok.org. We now pose to say thank you, Carson, for the gift of life. In our question and answer segment, we do want to share something with you. We received a voicemail from a donor mom out of Oklahoma who had some kind words to say.
So let's listen in. Yes, I'd just like to call in to give a little shout out to LifeShare of Oklahoma. My name is Michelle and I'm a donor mom. I'm calling on behalf of my entire family.
I just want to say that we love LifeShare and that we want everyone to know that they have been a blessing in our lives. They stood with us and guided us through the darkest days of our lives when we lost our sweet baby Janus and they have continued to stand by us over the last 70 years. They've never missed an opportunity to honor our sweet son and recognize and give the gifts that he has given. They have kept his memory alive and shown us the ultimate in compassion and appreciation.
My entire family knows the importance of donation and the lives that are saved daily because of LifeShare's mission. Everyone in my immediate family and my extended family are organ donors and we're honored to be able to one day save a life with precious gift of donation. We love you, LifeShare. Just keep up the good work.
I want to thank Michelle for calling in to the voicemail line. That was great. I like how she really talked about honoring their donors in Oklahoma at LifeShare. Sally, let's talk about some of the things we do here to honor our donor.
I think it's just a fantastic thing that different OPOs and more particularly Michelle talking about Oklahoma honoring their families. What we do here is we have donor family picnics, which all of our donor families are invited to attend and meet with other families and sometimes they do meet their recipients of their loved ones. They're also, there's some of our hospitals that have the wall of heroes. So folks that have donated through a particular hospital, they do have their picture and wall honoring those heroes.
And another thing that we do is we offer volunteer opportunities to our donor families. They can go and they can speak at different functions, share their loved ones stories, talk about what donation has meant for them, along with a few other things that we also do. Yeah, I love a lot that we share ideas as well. So thank you to Oklahoma.
I love hearing from those, those mamas. We want to hear from you too. Our hotline is 504-648-3477. Give us a call.
Eyes and other episodes in the books. Absolutely. Yes, Jeff Orlowski. He's with Live Share and he's their president and CEO and we had a chance to talk to him a little bit more.
29 years in the donation world started off as a donor coordinator. So he's a passion from his first hand experience in the field. And now he's in leadership and he's helping to save more lives each and every day, which is pretty cool. We also talked to Miss Katie Smith about decision week.
So we learned a lot from our partners in Oklahoma. We just love him. And listen guys, we have something coming up on Friday, December the 2nd. Okay.
We have the Donate Life Rose Flourograph Decorating Ceremony. And if you would like more information, please come to our website at lopa.org. Remember, Friday December the 2nd. Which is just awesome.
That's just an amazing thing to be a part of. Absolutely. And don't forget that finished floor graph will air on January 2nd for the Rose Bowl parade. Which is pretty good.
We're honoring Louisiana Hero and you'll see that in the Rose Parade, which is awesome. And then Sally, I think you and I have some thank yous. Bo! Oh, no, no, no.
Fantastic. How did it feel? Well, this was actually very, I was very nervous. But thanks to you guys.
You all pretty much held my hand throughout the whole process. So I do appreciate that. You're great. You brought your talent, your expertise.
And we just kind of filled in the blanks. Absolutely. We're here as color team. We appreciate you.
And thanks to all of you for listening to the Gifted Life. Please help us spread the word about the Gifted Life podcast. And we hope that you go out and do something you don't normally do to help us make life happen. Have a good one.