Hello and welcome to the gifted live podcast where we have conversations about organ tissue and eye donation. I'm Lori Steele and joining me is Joey Boudreau and this is episode number one. So this is groundbreaking. Yes, Lori.
These certainly are exciting times. We try to educate as much as we can. We look at different avenues where we can reach out to you guys to be able to spread awareness to promote organ donation and to help you to make an educated decision if and when that time would come. So certainly we look at this podcast as a possible way to reach more of the audience.
There you go. I'm a community educator with the Louisiana Organ Procurement Agency, our LOBA and you are more clinical. Yes, I'm the chief clinical officer for LOBA. I oversee the organ recovery division more the staff that goes into the hospitals and help support the families and actually does the organ recoveries.
So but one of our very important roles as clinicians is also to help you guys in the community because without education and without spreading the word, there's no way we could possibly make life happen like we do. Yeah. Well, our goal with these podcasts, this one and the ones that follow every other week. So hopefully reach a new audience.
We're on social media. We're trying to get as much education out there as possible. And this is just one of our avenues. So every other week, look for us.
We're going to be everywhere, Joey. Yeah, we would love for you guys to listen in on our webpage. You can you can find us on our webpage on LOBA dot org slash podcasts or you could subscribe to our podcast. It'll be available on iTunes, Stitcher, Windows, Phone, Mero, Beyond Pod, Tune In or Pocketcast.
Yes, really everywhere. So there's no excuse, right, Joey? No excuse not listening. Yeah, we want you listening into these podcasts and learning a little bit.
We have lots going on on today's show. This gifted life podcast will include a little bit of news, donate life month, so much happening. Hang on to your hat. Of course, we will have a recovery segment where I'm going to touch a little bit on the basics of brain death and a little bit about donation.
Yeah, on the community, we hear a lot of myths. We try to squash those today. We tackle the biggest myth that we hear often. And in our community segment, we'll talk about Blue and Green Day that's coming up.
And then we'll also have a special guest, hopefully, calling in. Oh, yeah. That's good. Technology side, new registry, website, lots of information for you.
Write your fingertips. And then last but not least, we're going to have a segment on honoring a hero because we'd like to honor a hero on each podcast because honestly, you know, obviously without the heroes there, you know, that making life wouldn't happen. And they're the truly the ones that make the impact. The other ones that leave that legacy.
They leave a legacy we never forget. We also be taking your questions. And there's so much more here on the gifted life podcast. We hope you stay tuned.
All right. That means it's time for news here on our very first podcast. It's called the gifted life, very appropriate name. We'll try to educate so we can save lives through transplant.
We have lots of partners who help us to do that. And April is a really big month. We get a lot of traction here, right? Yes, it is.
April is National Donate Life Month. It's a huge month. We're all running in different directions because we're trying to spread awareness for our God donation throughout the state. Throughout the state, we have lots of partners.
We told you we work for the Louisiana Oregon Procurement Agency, or LOBA. We're also known as Donate Life, Louisiana. We have this umbrella that we operate under with all of our partners who help to increase our registry, increase awareness. Some of those partners are the office motor vehicles, hospitals, donor families, recipient families, those waiting on the transplant, all of us working together.
We're excited this month because we have a new player in our midst. Who is that, Lauren? It's a really big name. The governor of our great state of Louisiana.
Bobby, Jim, do you know what I thought you knew him on the first name? I thought you knew him on the first name. I called him the governor. He has officially proclaimed April as Oregon Donor Awareness Month.
So helping us reach a new audience that maybe we hadn't reached before, so we appreciate that help. But it's official that's kind of like a golden seal of approval if you will, right? Yeah, we also have another celebrity, if you will. It's our heart-shaped mascot, donated by one of our driving schools, another partner.
He is aptly named Donate. Donate. A-U-X, donate. Yes.
And so he'll be popping up across the state at different events to draw awareness, to help people learn about Oregon donation and just for good plain old fun and Facebook profile pictures if you will, right? We also have runs and other events, and they're all across the state happening at different times. So really, there's no excuse for you not to get involved. There's not.
Actually, I'll be taking part in one of the runs on April 11th in Lafayette. So you actually run? Well, it's a slow jog, but I say I run. I supervise.
That's my role. Yeah, yeah, yeah, I would pass out. But join us. Yeah, look it up.
It's really easy. Yes, there are many ways to keep up with Donate Life Louisiana news. You can visit lopaswebsite at lopa.org. You can like Donate Life Louisiana on Facebook.
I've done that. Have you. Yes. Great information.
And if you have Twitter, I don't know if you do, but you can use the handle at Donate Life LA on Twitter or follow us on Instagram. Yeah, we try to be everywhere all the time, especially during April. So we hope that you can make one of our events or promote donation in some way, shape or form. We've reached the recovery segment of the gifted life, our first podcast.
We appreciate you joining us and sticking with us. Over 123,000 people across the country are waiting on a lifesaving organ transplant in our own little slice of heaven in Louisiana. It's almost 2,000 people. We boast that we have educated a lot of people.
Over 2.2 million have said yes to organ donation. We have a lot of lives to save. Unfortunately, if you sign up to be an organ donor, not everyone will become an organ donor. And that's because you have to die in a specific way.
That's right. Many people believe that if I sign on the registry, then that must mean I'm going to be coming to organ donor. And many people can, especially through tissue donation, they can save on hand-slides. But to become an organ donor, you first must suffer a brain injury.
Then that brain injury could be a traumatic brain injury, maybe a colaxin or a motorcycle accident or something like that. Or it could be someone who had a stroke or maybe just had suffered from a cardiac arrest where their heart stops and their brain stopped receiving oxygen. You know, what happens is over a period of time, the doctors do everything they can to save that person's life, all the way from the paramedics and then through the nursing staff and the emergency room and then through the physicians and neuro staff, neurologists and brain surgeons. And what happens is they'll do a series of things to try to alleviate the pressure that happens in the brain.
Because just as if you break your arm or you suffer an arm injury, your tissue swells. And fortunately, if you suffer that arm fracture or arm break, your skin is compliant and it'll be able to swell. But with your brain, it's encapsulated within just all. It's hard.
So there's not anywhere for it to go. And once that pressure inside the brain, even though they've been trying to do things to alleviate the pressure to relieve the pressure. Because all life-saving efforts are taken at this point. They will take every effort to save your life and to save that person's life.
And then once the brain overcomes the pressure and the brain overcomes the blood pressure, it can no longer receive oxygen and receive what we call blood perfusion. So it's at that time where brain cells die, unfortunately. And at that point, the physicians will do a certain series of tests. You have 12 cranial nerves, 12 nerves in the brain.
They will check each and every cranial nerve through a series of tests, including checking for your breathing and coughing and things. These are things that happen because your brain is functioning. You're going to be on a ventilator. They have, again, when they've tried to save your life, they put you on a ventilator or a breathing machine.
So it's kind of confusing. It looks as though you may be in a coma. And people kind of confuse it with a coma sometimes. But it's a little different in that with a coma, you still have some brain stem function.
You may still have a cough or a jag or maybe you still have a little bit of breathing left. But in brain death, they have checked every system, every nerve. To see if there's still any function, if they are all completely seized, then that person is declared brain dead. And it is a very difficult process to understand.
It's somewhat difficult to even see because the heart is still beating. And that's really the confusing part. But the heart has its own pacemaker. And as long as it's receiving oxygen from that breathing machine, it will still beat.
And sometimes the skin is still warm to touch. So that's where the confusion comes in. So that's why we, as LOPRA and other organ recovery agencies across the nation, and even neuro neurologists and things, they try to educate families so that there isn't that confusion. And it's irreversible damage.
And that's hard to accept. I hear a lot, especially from my donor mothers, when they walk into that room, they're still warm to the touch. They can still feel that heart beating. And so that's why it's hard for them to understand at that point brain death to talk about organ donation.
So our job, our goal is to get you talking, understanding about it before it gets to that point because there's a lot going on at that time. And two, because only about 2% to 3% of the population dies at brain death. Most of the population, most people die where their heart stops being first. There are only two ways where you will be declared dead.
One is if your heart stops, the other is if your brain stops. And this is only a very small percentage, 2% to 3%. So a lot of people don't have a lot of exposure to have that understanding. And so again, this is why we try to explain things and get the word out and help people to understand the difference that this is, like you said, an irreversible thing.
It's not like a coma where you can maybe regain some function. Yeah. And so that's why we appreciate you listening on this podcast. We appreciate you inviting us into your classroom, your hospital, your OMB so that we can explain this because at times it can be a lot to take in, especially if it's your loved one in that hospital.
So thanks for the insight. Of course, we have more to discuss here on the Gifted Life podcast. And we surely hope that you stay tuned. Thanks for listening, guys.
This is the Gifted Life podcast. I'm Laurie. This is Joey. And we are trying to educate about organ donations.
So we really appreciate you listening in. You know, I work out in the community, so I'm in the classrooms, hospitals, churches. And there's a common theme between everyone and every location. And that is a myth that if I'm a donor, if I have that heart of my license, like we do proudly here in Louisiana, they won't work as hard to save my life.
That is a myth. We've had testimonials, but explain to us, I mean, you're a former E-arners for what? Seven years? Yeah.
And now you're our clinical guy here at LOPA. So if I'm a donor, they won't work as hard to save my life, myth, right? Well, that myth couldn't be further from the truth. That's an emergency room nurse.
You know, it's not something we did. You know, I'm going to check and see if someone's got a hold on their license. You know, we tried to save that person's life. We did every measure that we can from putting a patient on a ventilator to giving them fluids and things and getting them to, you know, of course, the surgery in these brain injured cases.
So that's your main focus is trying to save that person, saving the lives of others. And we don't want that to be, you know, in the minds of any healthcare professionals. And it isn't, you know... That's a different team, though, right?
It's a different team, you know. These hospitals, there are only three hospitals in the state that actually do transplant. So the rest of the hospitals, you know, they don't even have any affiliation with the transplantation itself. Their focus is to save their patrons and their patients' lives.
We have a volunteer, Donnie Trox-Claire, and he tells us so eloquently, and I'll try to sum it up for you. But he was in a car accident and he was ejected. He says he was a bonehead, wasn't wearing his seatbelt, but he was literally on the outside of the car. Fortunately, the car didn't land on top of him, but 911 was called, and was their job to save lives.
He had a heart on his license. He was an organ donor, and they saved his life. And later, those injuries led to organ failure, and he needed a kidney, pancreas transplant. So the way he tells it is they did everything in their power to save his life, which he's eternally grateful for.
They did. And then he ended up needing a transplant. So that's a pretty powerful story, but a true testimonial that when you're out there, if you're the ER staff, the 911 staff paramedics, your job is not to look for organ donors. Your job is to save that life.
That's it. That's what you're trying to do. All right. That's one of our biggest myths that we fight.
We focus on education in Louisiana, and we hope that word is getting out. So if you're listening, spread the word. Help us, right? All right.
Coming up on the Gifted Life, we'll be talking about National Blue and Green Day. It's your creative shoes on, Joey. Here we go. All right.
We appreciate the community segment on the Get to Life podcast. Our very first one. How do you think it's going? That's wonderful.
I'm very happy with it. We've given ourselves props. We've got to love this, right? But here's coming up.
We want you to mark your calendar. We want you to get involved. This is an easy way to get involved. And you can see what you guys think of.
They do. The animals come into play. They have blue and green outfits. I see your liking this.
I wonder when you get to buy those. You're going to do... Oh, we can do challenges as well. April 17th is our big day.
It's across the nation. It's a raise awareness for organizing tissue donation. We're asking you to post pictures, hashtag bg. That's for blue green.
That was for you Joey. Hashtag BGLA. Donate Life. Use that when you're posting.
Or you can send it to one of our community educators or someone who works for local posts in April 17th. We want to blow up Facebook, Twitter, Instagram. All those fun things for National Blue and Green Day. And a lot of people have been asking, do you have gear that can be purchased?
Yeah, right? Where can I get this gear? Oh, what do you tell me? I'll tell you.
All right, donationmergendice.com is one of the sites that we use, donationmergendice.com. There's all sorts of fun, different things that you can do. And maybe you have some bright ideas that we can use here at Loba. You know, we want to hear about all that.
One of the ways that we use some of this, the blue and green hair, the different things, you know, is to raise awareness. So we can save lives, right? We have this volunteer in the Baton Rouge area. His name is Smith.
He's a cutie-but-tootie. He gives the greatest kisses to the girls that he likes. So, pretty cute little guy. He's given high fives to the high school dudes.
So he's really relating with a lot of different audiences. And I know out there you would love him as well. But his life was saved. He participates in blue and green day.
He does the spike tear, one side, blue one side, greenie has the shirts and all of that. And he's just a typical little boy. And his dad, Blaine, is actually going to join us to tell us a little bit more about Smith and how donation has really just impacted not only Smith's life, but the entire family. Joining us now is Blaine McCray.
He is the father of cutie-but-tootie, Smith McCray. Smith is a six-year-old liver recipient. And he's doing great, right, Blaine? He really is.
Every day is more and more normal with things. So, yeah, you don't think that thing. And I love how you and your wife, Adrian, just love on this little guy in Big Weather Ass, cool name, by the way. But it was tough going at first, right?
He was a little guy and he had a lot of problems. Yeah, he was. I mean, so we found out that he was sick at our two-month well-check. Just kind of went into the doctor, a pre-scheduled appointment and found out later that afternoon that, you know, they believed he had eternal illness and it was, you know, it was a pretty big jolt to our life.
Yeah, so we dealt with it for, he was in an hospital for, you know, months until he got to be six-month-old. And that's what he planned. Yeah, and I love that you and Adrian have so much family and friend support there. That makes all the difference.
Did you guys know about organ donation going into this? Are you learned about it as you went? No, we did not. I can't speak for Adrian, but I did not really know anything about it.
I can't honestly say that I had the heart of my driver's license. I just, you know, I was, and I had done that since I was married, you know, given the choice to, you know, I had something or keep something, you know, I was like, why would I just give it so my husband can use it? Right. But that was the extent.
You know, we, it was very much a learning process for us. And I know for them, a great family, his liver transplant was quite the gift, right? Because we have watched this little boy grow up and we called a hero a donor angel. Tell us about that.
Yeah, I mean, he or she truly is, you know, Smith's angel. It's been insane just to watch how sick he was and what he's a really insanely tough little person that had one broken piece. And as soon as that broken piece was fixed, donation to him that didn't know him or anything about it. As soon as that one piece was taken out and replaced, I mean, it just, he shifted gears and he was kind of finally able to become the person that, you know, he wasn't out of his head.
You know, he's just this tough, spunky, you know, just a hilarious little boy, you know, and it's stuff that you do. When you see him in the hospital bed fighting for his life, it's just as hard to imagine ever having, you know, this. And so he received this gift of life and now the whole family gets together to pay it forward. Tell us some of the things that you do.
Well, we have his rebirth day and lucky for us, it's not, you know, his, so, Joe, first is his rebirth day that he got his transplant, his birthday in December. So it's really kind of, it's not about a calendar. So it's another opportunity to, you know, it's a special day that we operate, you know, his getting this gift. It's just, you know, that our families are very involved and we talk about it in any opportunity.
We have the local message and organ donation and paying it forward to others. You know, we try to do that and our family is involved and very helpful and it's just been great for us. You guys adopt transplant families over the holidays. We have a race in the Baton Rouge area that probably run for life.
You guys have a team, the Leopin Livers. So the awareness is there, the education is there. We love that you guys do it as a family. But most importantly, we love that little Smith is able to live a normal life.
I know that Mom just sent me a picture and he has a shiner. What happened with that? This week, Monday, we were at his first year of coaches pitch. And, you know, so they've not only advanced the game of baseball to where, you know, you're actually getting a pitch ball.
The ball changes from this spongy. I was, I'm an assistant coach. I was helping some other kids on another part of the field. I wasn't actually there when it happened, but I think it was just a grounder that took a funny hop and hit him in his eye.
And, like I said earlier, he's so tough. I mean, his eyes weren't swelling up, but they were trying to get him to come to the side and get down. He was ready to keep playing. You know, they had to kind of make him stop.
Like, no, let's go, let's go into your eye and baseball can wait. But that's just another part of, you know, the kind of normalcy that he's able to. Yeah. That reminds me.
I know that grandma had bottom of shirt that says chicks dig scars. It's just another scar right, right? Yeah. But I mean, you get those scars early in your life and they become part of you just like, you know, and it is who he is.
So one of our things, you know, we try to make sure that when he has something like that, so early, it's easy to take it for granted. And it's easy to, why am I any different than anybody else? You know, sure everyone else had this. No, you're a special case.
Someone gave, you know, someone's misfortune allowed you, you know, to be who you are today and you have to remember that. And your scar, if you look out of the mirror, you know, it means something. It's not just a lot on your body. I see you, I see you doing that with your boys, with your family.
We appreciate you sharing your story. We appreciate you allowing us to watch Smith grow up and we appreciate you honoring his donor. Thanks for joining us, Blaine. Well, great.
Thank you, Lori. Hey, everybody, the Get to Life podcast continues and we are talking about technology. I'm not too tech savvy. You know, I'm not.
There you go. But guess what? Those tech savvy folks at LOPA helped make it a little bit easier for us. Actually, a lot easier for us.
You look at the site. Yes, we are talking about our new registry website, which you can access at donate life LA.org donate life LA.org. Okay, so that's an easy site to get to. We made it as user friendly as possible, right?
We work for LOPA, Louisiana, Oregon Procurement Agency, Lori and Joey, but we have all these partners. And so we call ourselves donate life, Louisiana, because we operate under that umbrella. We all work together to increase the registry, increase awareness, and we thought this was easy to remember. Donate life LA.org.
How easy is that? And it's easy for me. And I'm not the most tech savvy of guys. And of course, I'm always on the go.
So sometimes I'll have my iPad or my tablet out and sometimes I'm using my phone. And with this website, you can actually access it with your phone, your tablet, with a laptop, with a computer. They've made it to where it's really, really easy. You can also use different browsers, Firefox, the far explorer, Chrome.
So it's quite a bit of ways to where you can access and get on the website so you can possibly look at as we spoke about earlier. There might be a myth that you're concerned about. You can find it on there. Different facts about donation.
You can find it on there. You sound tech savvy. I'm proud of you. I just pulled up on my phone as we were talking.
It was that easy. You can register to donate here, which takes a matter of seconds. Our tech savvy folks were saying, what's cool about this is that if you have to put in letters, it goes to that keypad. If you have to put in numbers like a zip code, it changes so you don't have to do it yourself.
It'll slow you up. So that's all good stuff. One of the parts I want to feature is that you can sign up to volunteer. A lot of folks are saying, how can I get involved?
What can I do? Really? There are a lot of aspects. There are a lot of different things across the state that you can sign up for.
We just got to find out where you are, what your talents are, and then put them to use. So we're always looking for someone. We talked about Blue and Green Day. I mean, anybody can do that on any device, even you, Joey?
Yes, even me. So what are you going to be doing? Do we now? Well, I'm going to be, of course, from my Blue and Green Day.
I'm going to try to do a little sinta, you know, like to fix my hair different ways. I'll definitely do some coloring. I might do my toonels, as I said earlier. I didn't think people will be promoting.
I didn't think people will allow people to mess with that. Okay. Okay. We keep talking about Blue and Green Day.
That's coming up on April 17th. We have a calendar that you can access on donatelifela.org. So like we said, it's all there at your fingertips. Really a one-stop shop for those who are wanting to get involved.
We have donor families, we have recipient families, and we have students. We have those who are waiting on a transplant. We have family members. We have hospital workers, OMB staff.
So really everybody has something to bring to the table. So we know in this day and age it's kind of tough. We have some easy stuff for you to do as well. Can you make some phone calls for you?
Can you use some office work? Really anything? Bring it to the table. That's make life happen, right?
Yes, yes. And like we said, donatelifela.org. It's really easy to find, you know, and it's really a lot of upgrades, easy to serve through. So please visit us.
Easy. One-stop shop. Thanks everybody. We hope that you will check it out.
We hope that you're checking out now, right? Yes, that's easy. donatelifela.org. The Get to Life podcast will continue.
All right. Here on the Get to Life podcast, and this is episode one, but we have all come into agreement that we want to honor a hero. Heroes leave a legacy and we want to bring that to light. This donor, her name is Sean Elizabeth Guillot, and we are highlighting her here, but she's also being honored nationally as our donor.
She has a pretty powerful story that spans over two decades. I know her story because I work with her mom, Peggy Guillot, who is an advocate, even all these years later. And Joey, just to kind of tell you and those who are listening to this podcast, Sean Elizabeth had gotten her license two weeks before her accident. She kind of had a bad day at school.
Mom asked her if she would go to the grocery store for her. And of course, she was excited. We all remember getting her license, getting the keys to the car, going by yourself, that kind of thing. So Sean Elizabeth leaves not far from home.
She's involved in a single vehicle accident. Mom and Dad get a knock at the door. It's not good news. She's rushed to the hospital.
She's declared brain dead. Mom, and I'll keep in mind, this is over two decades ago, trying to wrap this around her brain. What is happening here? She's being told about brain death.
She's being told that this is her baby girl not coming back. All this stuff going on. And then this conversation about organ donation starts happening. And she doesn't know what to think.
She's not familiar with organ donation. Her and her family haven't discussed it. Even though Sean Elizabeth had her license, there was no discussion about it. And remember, this was over 20 years ago where her dad, Don, had read an article in like a Dear Abbey segment in the paper.
We read those like on Sunday morning, that kind of thing. It was about organ donation. And it was promoting donation. We need to talk about it.
And he said, we should do this. This death was going to happen with her without donation. Our 15-year-old can leave a legacy. Mom struggled.
And then she said this piece just kind of came about her, right? It was just this piece. And she said, yes, organ donation. 15-year-old Sean Elizabeth, our hero, saved six people, which is amazing, which we're still talking about today.
I think you and I had talked about this before. Some of our donor families are fearful that their heroes. We've forgotten. We are still talking about Sean Elizabeth all these years later.
Mom is a big advocate. She talks in front of national audiences because of the lives saved. And those recipients and their loved ones, you know, that you talked in 20 years ago, they were able to have that second chance that so many of us hope for. And she and they were able to give that to them.
And one of the hard things with this mom is that she was 15. What kind of mark did she leave on the world? And she said the one thing that they have to hold onto is organ donation. And during the month of April, organ donation awareness month, we will share Sean Elizabeth's story.
And like we said, she's honored nationally as our hero. And so we want to remember Sean Elizabeth. We want to remember the lives that she saved. She also was a tissue donor.
She helped folks see as well. So organ eye and tissue. And this was 20 years ago. So this is still amazing.
Her mom is an inspiration. We love Sean Elizabeth because we hear about her so often through her mom and through these volunteers. So we encourage you to come forward, share those stories. It is an inspiration, it brings new life into us to help save more lives.
And at this point in this podcast, we want to pause and we want to thank Sean Elizabeth for the gift of life. That is truly an amazing story. And you can hear, you know, or read about her story and other heroes just like her on our webpage on the local.org under the faces of donation tab. It's really powerful.
Please check it out. We get to live podcasts and again, this is episode one. We appreciate you sticking with us. We thought it important to answer a lot of your questions.
We get questions that pour in through our website and we are committed to answering them. We use it as a teaching tool as well. So this question came in Joey. It says I'm a student at a college in Louisiana doing a presentation on organ donation and we get those a lot and we do want to help as much as possible.
So she says to young males, one poor, one rich, but in need of a heart long transplant, both on the waiting list, same length of time, a transplantable heart long just become available. So she gets it. How will this decision be made and by whom? So these are questions that filter in.
And this is one that we thought was important to discuss. Yeah. And actually, this is not the first time I've gotten this. You know, in some of my community events, this similar question has been posed.
The answer is that it's not based on rich or poor, you know, this, the person that receives this heart or lung will get based on need and match, you know, there's a system place and it's called, you know, United Network of Organ Sharing and they house the national waiting list. And it is an honest list. And what happens if someone is a potential donor here in Louisiana, we have staff that pulls up the list, you know, they put up the information, put all the information in to this, you know, website. And this information is not names where it's height.
Right. It is height and weight and blood type. You know, so that's how a donor and potential recipient are matched, not based on the person's social status or the amount of wealth that they have, you know, none of that is input in this into this database. So once we input the data and we can, you know, figure out which donor matches the best recipient, you know, we offer that to the transplant center.
And of course, it is by the sickest and best match. You know, then of course they would then say yes for the recipient and then come into Louisiana or there, you know, one of the transplants within Louisiana flying or drive in and recover that organ heart lung for their potential recipient. And we have a volunteer who tells his story and he says he was on disability and he was raising a child and he was only getting $16,000 a year and he received a kidney pancreas. And he said it was based on how much you make.
He wouldn't be here to tell his story today. So that's pretty powerful. Right. So we encourage questions, please.
It allows us to know what you're thinking about. You know, this is stopping you from signing up to help save lives. We want to answer as much as possible so that you can make an educated decision. So if you have questions, we want to hear from you info at lopa.org or info at donate life LA.org.
Send him in. We always answer and some will pull here on this podcast because it's a great thing. We want you to be as educated as possible. We want you to be informed.
Yeah. All right. We have come to the end of the gifted life podcast episode one. How do you feel?
How do you feel? I think this went great. I mean, I'm excited about it. Looking forward to episode two.
We're pumping ourselves up. We'll see what others have to say. And we do want to hear from you. There's a lot of work that went into this podcast sweat and times tears, right?
But we do want to thank Blaine McCrae. He joined us on the podcast today to tell us about his cutie petudison Smith, who's alive and well today thanks to a donor angel, a hero. And so we came up with some topics to discuss today, but we want to hear from others. Yes.
Yes. If you have any suggestions, any topics that you'd like to hear about in the future, let us know at info at lopa.org. Thank you. And then your questions.
We appreciate you sticking with us. It's called the gifted life podcast. And it was a good time. We think a lot of education can be done here in Louisiana.
2.2 million people have signed up. We are proud of that. And our goal is to reach the entire state of Louisiana. We want to see red hearts everywhere.
That would be nice, right? That would be nice, right? All right. We hope that you sign up.
We thank you. It's the gifted life episode one.