Hello and welcome to the gifted live podcast where we have conversations about organ tissue and eye donation. I'm Lori Steele and I'm Joey Boudreau and we are here trying to spread awareness about donation and I'm kind of excited because we had some new things happen. One of them we talk about Lopa.org and all that we offer. We have a speaker request tool and we got new driving schools who joined our team.
They want presentations, they want new information so that's amazing. We had a new donor family member sign up to volunteer. They want to join our team and help in any way they can. We appreciate that and then we are watching those who have recently gotten a transplant not only survive but thrive.
They tell us which is awesome. It's inspiring and we try to share those types of stories here on the gifted live podcast and we hope that you share with everybody you know it's easy. Absolutely you can look us up on iTunes or whatever your favorite podcast app might be but we're a lot easier to find just look up the gifted life and you'll find us. It's easy if I can find it.
You can find it. It's very easy for you but also a lot of what we talk about here on the gifted live you can find on our Facebook, Instagram, those kinds of things. Don't lie, Louisiana, check it out and see what we are talking about. Today on this episode the first double hand transplant on a child.
We'll talk about that story which was incredible and shared a lot on social media. In our recovery segment, Lori, we're going to be highlighting Lopa's family services division. And we're cruising for Lopa which I love. We'll tell you about that and how you can be a part.
Then we'll talk about a new technology that will allow us to honor more families wishes. We'll also honor a hero here on the gifted live all that and a whole lot more. So keep listening. Okay, Joey, you want to kind of kick off the meat of this gifted live podcast with a pretty cool story that has taken social media by storm.
Lots of people paying attention to this story. And I think because of the precious little face that's attached to it. But an eight year old little boy became the first child to get a double hand transplant. So he's eight years old.
His name is Zion. And he lost his hands and feet at two years of age because of an infection that also led to a kidney transplant. So he had this transplant. He goes through rigorous therapy several times a day.
He can move his hands a little. But he's so cute. He said, I want to thank you to all the doctors. I want to thank you for helping me through this bumpy road.
So this is a man of a lot of years, eight, right? But he's speaking like a little adult, but he says he cannot wait to hang on to the monkey bars. He's still very active prosthetics for his feet so he can walk around and jump. That kind of stuff.
But just the cutest kid. And then when those words come out of his mouth, it's like, man, be on power packed and you just want nothing but the best for him. It's amazing. It is.
He touched on it. He's got such an infectious smile. He is a cutest kid and kind of puts a face to this new type of transplant that's out there. We generally talk about the eye transplant, a cornea transplant and then organ and tissue transplant.
Well, this is a one of those. It's a between organ and tissue where it's a structural unit like arms, our hands, our legs, or even on occasion, a face transplant. So they attach all the nerves, the skin, the bone, the tendons, everything as one unit. And then over time, as in as ION's case, because they attach at the growth plates, it can grow with the similar frequency to what it would have.
So it's amazing. It is just amazing what the technology and what's out there now with the organ and tissue donation. Yeah, not happening in Louisiana, but we are all fascinated by this because, you know, he's the first child to get this double hand transplant, but a 10 hour surgery, just put that in perspective if you're like a parent, grandparent, and a 40 member team of nurses, doctors and surgeons to make this happen. Wow.
You've got to figure you've got plastics and plastic surgery involved. You've got to have vascular surgeons. You've got to have probably general surgeons, but then you also have to have orthopedists and things like that. So you've got so many different entities just in this one surgery.
It's amazing. Here's was 10 hours. I've seen it up to 24 hours, you know, on other VCA's or vascular composite aligrams. And so think about all your wants, all your needs, your desires, and this eight year old wants to someday hang on the monkey bars.
We're just rooting for him. I mean, but you can't help but want to root for him because he's so stinking cute, but it was a social media fire storm. We shared it on our Facebook page. If you hadn't seen the story or if you want to learn more about it, but donate life, Louisiana, check out our Facebook page today.
And we have reached the recovery segment. And today we want to talk a little bit about LOPA's family services department. So you know what that means. That means the one and only Sally Gentry.
Bring it in the big guns, but let me tell you a little bit about Sally before we bring her on. And as a counselor, fellow status in the American Psychotherapy Association, 35 years experience in mental health services and she's been with LOPA for 15 years, helping pave the way for some incredible accomplishments. Absolutely, 15 great years and just a little bit more of a background in these fancy alphabet that she's got behind her name. She has been one of the pioneers, she's been on the forefront, not only within LOPA and Louisiana, but within the nation.
You know, talking to these other groups, the other family services groups in the other states, they're getting a lot of the information from what Sally's been doing for years and years. All right. So let's bring her in. How are you?
Good. So I was learning all about your history here today. I just thought you were a cool chick. Now you're really cool.
But I get those donor families who are ready to volunteer, spread the word, honor their heroes, and they always talk about LOPAs, Family Services Department. They always mention Sally, Libby, you're a part of their family now, and it's because of this program that provides so much support. So kind of lay out what we have to offer these families. I think one of the best things that we offer families as an agency and as our department is we do follow up services.
What that means is we call families 10 to 20 days, post recovery, introduce ourselves, share a little bit of information about recipients, and ask families if there's anything that they would like to share with us or any concerns or questions. And basically what we do is we just provide a listening ear. We spend a lot of time just hearing what families have to say, what they would like to get out of our program, and of course if they choose not to be part of the program, we don't push that either. But we find that almost every donor family member wants to have communication ongoing with us, and that may mean not only just our department, but maybe with other departments within LOPA, and that's part of the opportunities they do get, is if they choose to be a volunteer and work with you or other folks within the agency to volunteer.
What other type of services you mentioned that we can provide them with some type of services? What are the services that we provide and how can we honor their loved one? I think one of the best things that we do again is just the listening component. However, along with that we do limited grief counseling.
If we find out that someone is in need of more in-depth services, maybe they're not feeling that they're getting from their family or their church group or from relatives outside or friends, we do have a listing of resources that we can provide to them in the community, and that may mean resupports groups or it may mean individual counseling if necessary. But we also then offered them as time goes on the opportunities to meet with the recipients if they choose to do so. Both parties have to want to do so. We find that it's very powerful in how individuals react to the donation of their loved one.
And working with those volunteers, those donor families, that's one of the things that they highlight the most. Not only did you hold their hand, why they had to write that letter, which was tough. You helped them meet, which has not always been the case. This is something that you helped facilitate for all.
What happens is when people make that decision, and sometimes it's very quickly after the donation, that they would like to meet with the recipients and or sometimes the recipients are very eager to meet with the donor families right afterwards. So what we do is we encourage them to write one letter and just explain what they would like for this individual to know about their loved one. And coming from the donor family, what their hobbies might be, their interests, this sort of thing. Because the recipients, many times now, they will call me directly and they've sent a letter and they'd like to know how can they meet with the donor family.
And what we do at that point is we'll call the family and say, your loved one's recipient, whichever organ that person may have received is very interested in communicating with you. You all said you want to do so. Do we have your permission to go ahead with this? And well, as you can well imagine, I've not had anyone say they did not want to do so.
And you know if you go to our website, loba.org, there is a tab at the top of the page, Family Services. Click on that tab and there's a lot of helpful information following your loss. So responding to grief, grief, support services, writing to recipients, writing to your donor family. It'd be a lot of volunteers who are ready to take that step, but they need some assistance.
So we have this tab which is full of information plus they have the outreach that Sally and Libby provide which I just hear again and again how helpful that is. Right. And Laurie, you touched on the writing to the recipients and that communication and Sally discussed at length about how we help facilitate the meetings. It hadn't always been that way.
Can you tell us Sally a little bit about the challenges that you guys face, especially earlier on and how that's kind of played out over the last few years? When I first came to work with Loeba, there was very little encouragement for recipients or donor families to write to one another. There was a fear in the industry that maybe there might be a problem as someone met. And coming from mental health background, my thoughts were communication is just so a high priority for all of us if we went to learn how to get along and share our thoughts and feelings with one another.
So as we started to move through this process, we did work very much with the Transplant Center locally. And we then once they realized that we were really looking out for the best interest of our donor families and for their recipients, they then kind of decided, well, you know, I think this might be a good thing to do. And what they found then, that when the recipients would go in to speak to the Transplant Doctor or speak with their coordinator or the social workers, they would bring a letter that their donor family had written and they were thrilled to be able to share that. And actually what they found was that people who did communicate in this way, both sides, donor families and recipients, the healing process, both physically and emotionally, had much higher rate than for people who were kept away from one another, constantly wondering who was this person who saved my life or who was this person who received my loved ones, organs or tissues.
I can remember earlier on, there was a time period that many of the Transplant Centers would impose and many of the organ recovery agencies, like they couldn't meet within the first year. And I can remember very well you being one of the ones, you and Libby both saying, look, it's not our place to say this is a set time that they have to wait. And I can remember you guys crossing those hurdles and the impact that it's made. And you know what was a really big instrument in coming to this too was many years ago, we had a donor family council.
And we would ask these folks, what if you could actually do what you wanted to do, what would your wish be? And every family member that was involved with our council said, we don't understand, why do we have to wait to write, what does that mean, we don't get any of that, we said yes to donation, we wanted to help others. And now we can't even hear about them. So we took that and we put that into place in part of our program.
And we looked at that and said, well, there's no reason why they can't do that. So then we really began to be true family advocates on this end and said, here's what we're going to do. Now you choose Transplant Center, other OPO, if you choose to edit out some of the information, that's going to be up to you in your discretion. However, we're not going to do that.
We're going to open up the door for these folks if they want to include their full name, along with their donor's name, their address, their contact information. It is not our place to keep them from that. There are no set rules here. This is all about the donor family.
And that's what we're here for. And so that's how we just took off from there and just we followed what families wishes were, not what we thought was best. And that made a major difference. Fantastic.
And you know during the presentations, the donor families or the recipients come with these letters that they read with pride. And some are encased in like shadow box or in the plastic covering because it's so precious to them. They hold on to that. And then especially after meeting, like we have a race coming up in October and we have the donor family and then we have the recipients who are coming as well to join part of that team.
So you can see the healing. So what you're talking about, I can see that unfold. And that's just amazing where we are today. Oh, absolutely.
I don't even know anything different. This is the way, you know, it's always been. And it's so healing for these families. I see it.
And it's just amazing. Well, go ahead. And with that is that, you know, at the very beginning, it's so traumatic for families. They don't know which way to go.
It's just something that they had never ever had anticipated. And I think for what Libby and myself, what we find is very helpful is again, giving them that hope that one day they can meet their loved ones recipients. And I think that's what we're finding more and more like what you're saying, Laurie, is that they're so proud of the fact that they have this letter or they're now meeting and they're able to talk. And it crosses all diversity lines.
It crosses all cultural type lines, socioeconomic lines. People are now able to actually carry on communication, maybe the folks they never would have done so in the past, which creates a whole new atmosphere for all of us, I think, to realize you have to be accepting of whatever might come your way, no matter how difficult and how long it may take to come to that realization that what our families have done is just something phenomenal that many of us will never get an opportunity to do. That's true. And I love when I get the pictures.
You know, we have a donor family and the boy was a teenager, the hero. And so mom got to meet some of the recipients and they all gathered together in New Orleans and then she took a group pick and sent it to me and she goes, this is my family now. And I just still give me the goosebumps now to think about it, to talk about it. But it's just incredible.
It's just inspiring every day. One of the things that we also look forward to and these families, the donor family picnics. Right. The donor family picnics, you know, that was one of the other things that Sally's helped pioneer in the past.
And we had memorial services for the donor families to honor their loved one. You know, and we've transitioned since over the past, I don't know, Sally, quite a few years now, we started to go to the donor family picnics. Can you talk about that a little bit? Yes.
When I first came to work for Lupa, there were the memorial events that Lupa was holding for donor families and there wasn't a whole lot of people who attended. And so we kind of looked at, well, maybe there's another way we need to look at this. And so we started looking at, rather than focusing on the individual's death, why don't we focus in on his life or her life? And let's celebrate that.
Let's bring families to an uplifting position, if you will, of having this celebration, rather than looking at it as, well, you know, my loved one is now deceased. What do I do next? This does give families an opportunity to meet one another, to bring recipients that they've met. We have quite a few people now who attend our picnics and it has grown throughout the last 15 or 14 years to quite a large number of individuals who come.
They look forward to it because that is their time to talk about their loved one and to share information. And of course, if they have a quilt square for our donor family quilt, that's something else that we offer to them. And I think that it's just a very uplifting, celebratory sort of situation for families. I love seeing the shirts they come in with the donors on their heroes or the buttons or everybody's wearing the same color.
And it's just we are here for our loved one for our hero and you see the smiles and everybody looks forward to it. And we're like, when's the next one? We're coming back here. So it just seems so healthy.
Lots of conversations going on. Lots of good memories that they're sharing. Right. Yeah, the donor family picnics are truly an awesome event to be part of.
It's so wonderful to see how it's been growing and growing. Yeah, especially for me and my family and getting to experience that is just an inspiring day. It makes you look at the world in a different way. So we appreciate you Miss Sally.
I'm going to just open invite Joey. I didn't even check with him yet, but we want you to come back on. Is that okay, Joey? Definitely.
Is that okay with you, Sally? That's great. Thank you all for having me. It's a fantastic job getting all this information out to people.
So thank you. Thank you. We didn't even pay her yet. We appreciate you, Sally.
And she's with Loba Family Services. And remember we have that tab at Loba.org, so check that out. Also invite Joey for the North Picnic for donor families. Those invites went out.
The data set, Saturday, September 12 in the Shreveport area. If you've missed place to invite, need more information, contact us at info at Loba.org. In our community segment, we are about to set sail. Well, in 2016, and you can come with us.
We're going to have all the details for you, but you're excited over there. I am. You're trying to board on it. I'm going to talk to Kelly.
Well, we'll kind of talk to you about how this all got started. So we have asked Hans Nelson to join us. Most of you probably know him as fast of big 102.1 fast in ginshow in the morning. Awesome.
I know you guys really relate to your audience because I've seen it. So we appreciate you joining us. We're glad to be here. Thanks so much for giving me a few minutes.
So I know you've been on the air since 1985. So I know you just from your work in the community and Joey as well, because we were like, what do we call you, Hans, or fast? Or you know what? So I think we'll know you as fast.
And then we got to know you a little bit better in May of 2013 because your son became a hero and saved for lives. Christian. So a lot of people in the Acadian area have heard about this story, but tell us a little bit about Christian. You know, it's funny, Lori, that being in the media, and you have one point where we're here in Lafayette, working this market.
And being involved in the community, and it's such a close knit family that it kind of, I guess, of our lives, Jen and I are like a microcosm of Acadian all together because we are married, have our family and our family as part of our radio show here and we do the whole show together. And, you know, normally it's good times. Normally it's one thing, family trips, we'll talk about how we went to the beach or whatever. And in May of 2013, everything changed for us forever.
And not only personally, but also professionally. And Christian was 19. He was just finishing up through his freshman year of college. He was at SLCC figuring out if he was going to do one more year there or try to get into UL immediately.
He had great grades. It was just kind of babysapping from Lafayette High to small college. They go into the big school. So we were kind of in the process of that in May.
I just finished up and was working part time in a warehouse here in Lafayette. And the Wednesday, a day like any other day and around lunchtime that day I got a call and it's funny because we got a call a few minutes ago. My phone didn't work. I'm off and I'm in trouble with it.
And that particular day you went straight to voicemail. I just didn't have a very good signal. And picked it up a couple of minutes later, maybe a minute or two after the call. I didn't know the numbers.
So I called it back. And it was his boss in the warehouse saying there had been an accident Christian that's fallen. And immediately you think small things. I thought, well, maybe he broke his arm or maybe he broke his leg or maybe he hurt himself.
And he's 19 but they still calling his aunt. I was kind of where my brain went with it. And then I started to pick up on this was not your typical small injury. And from there we found out that it was a traumatic brain injury and the neurosurgeons did everything they could.
But he just couldn't recover. It was too traumatic. So he didn't survive. But yet he does.
And it was a decision Christian had made to register to be an organ donor that I didn't know about. And he got his proper license and it was the question with acid that isn't everyone else. And he actually asked Jen, what does that mean? What do they mean to organ donor?
And so she gave him a cliff notes, very a bridge version of what it was all about from her little knowledge of it. And his response was something that we will carry with us forever. His response was literally quote, why wouldn't you do that? And so he checked the box, went on his merry way, Jen knew it.
She was there for the conversation. So when the Lopa came to the hospital and to visit with us to talk to us about it, when you know, we discovered that he was not going to pull through, Jen said, there's no need to look at his driver's license. I can tell you he wanted to be a donor. We're going to do it no matter what's involved with it.
We say yes, because he would say yes. And really that was Christian's personality in one little example, because he lived that way. He was a regular kid, but he was a very generous, kind, helpful personality. He was kind of a free spirit, but he was definitely a kid that would always put himself after someone else.
And the way this worked out is the way it was intended to be, oddly. Wow. And I've seen you talking to people about Christian who knew nothing about donation, people who have joined your team for a race because they heard your story and you guys talking about it on the radio. So you have kind of opened the doors, allowed your audience inside.
And I think the audience, the community really rallied around you guys. You know, we say it was a tough situation because our lives are to a degree in open book when we disappeared. And then this story is in the paper and it, you know, it's kind of spreading around. It's not all that big.
It's the word getting out past and Jen's done with it. And actually, the owner of the radio station felt he needed to, because we were going, I didn't know what to explain. So he literally himself got on the air and explained to the situation. And that was kind of got worked out on full circle because that's a Canadian.
It just wrapped themselves around us. I guess we've been here so long by August of this year's 30 years I've been in this business and all in a Canadian, all in a time, we've been here so people knew us and we've been involved in the community, our kids, what the school here like, like everyone else. And they rallied around us and kind of helped us to get back to work in a job where your whole intention is in the morning, everybody's grumpy. Nobody's having our job.
So come in and forget that we're grumpy too because we didn't want to get up either and have a good time and make everybody feel good. Well, you can't just walk right back into that. It just doesn't happen. So everybody knew it.
The whole, all of our listeners extended or like an extended family and they call every day just want you to know we're praying for you. We're thinking about you guys. Can't believe you're back at work. What, you know, take more time if you need it.
I mean, on and on and on. Well, that just motivated us to get back to work and it also motivated us to get to work in Christian's honor as well. And that was a really important thing for us to start doing work for him. In his name, he couldn't leave a lot of like a fee of a business or a family, children or anything like that.
But he did leave a legacy through his donation of his organs. And so we said, well, you know what, we're going to go to work for him and spread the word and hopefully everybody will put themselves in a position where heaven forbid this happens to their family. They know what it's all about and they've made the right decision. And Hans, you know, of course, again, I'll listen to you since they kind of date me a little bit, but you know, thank you a lot.
That's what I was going to say. You know, and through Christian's tragedy, we gained another couple family members with you guys and you guys have been truly, truly wonderful with us in helping us spread the news. And of course, you guys, you mentioned a little bit about his legacy, but you guys started up Christian's legacy, you know, a foundation in honor of him. Can you tell us a little bit about that?
Yeah, thank you. What we did was it took us a little while to kind of put it all together and we're still putting pieces of it together. But what are we going to do? We've got to do something.
He can't just this can't be yet. So how do we do work for him? Well, obviously immediately we said to Lopez, we'll say it till the day we're going, we'll do whatever. We'll speak, we'll participate in events, whatever.
And also we wanted to do something separate under it kind of his banner. And Christian's legacy is a really a twofold project. I mean, the mission really is, A, to do, you know, in conjunction with Lo, put this bread about the importance of organization, registration, education, speaking at schools, all those sort of things we are doing with Lo, but also under Christian's legacy. But the bigger goal, long term, is to be able to financially assist donor families.
And the plan is after a few years of trying to raise money and, you know, with selling t-shirts and doing different little things, nothing big yet. We've got some ideas, but maybe a few years down the road, to be able to go to call Lo, and say, look, is there a family, no, this quarter or this six month period or whatever, is there a family who may be ultimate, unselfish decision, but they're left with a lot of pieces, financially that are called in trouble, funeral expenses, leftover medical bills, maybe a child that's going to have to stop going to school, a particular school because they can't afford it, where we can hopefully step in and at least try to bridge the gap in Christian's name. And that's the big goal, but that's going to take some time because we're not talking about, we've got a lot of $10 t-shirts to sell, you know what I mean? So we're working toward that, and I really think that when you're a recipient, and you get this ultimate gift, you get the second chance, you get the start again, and that's what this is all about.
But when you give that gift, you get a full feeling inside of the family member, but then life goes on. And the void is there, but if you've got that void and sadness, because you've also got some sort of financial issue, we may not be able to help everybody, but our goal is to be able to help those that need it the most. Yeah, and we appreciate you guys stepping forward to do that, and that's Christian's legacy, helping those donor families. But I just kind of sit back and say, you know, what are they going to come up with next?
And then it was like, bam, we're going to do a cruise. What? What? What?
And this is your second one, right? Coming up May 29th, 2016, and I hear it's a blast. I tell you what we did it last year, and the radio station, I think our owner, he has been incredibly generous with advertising time, which we all know has a price to give us the time to do what you need to do for this event. Let's make it really big.
So the radio station pointed in, we call big, promote it and it gives us the airtime and the opportunity to talk about it in front of 50,000 plus a week on the radio. And we did it last year. We had an absolute blast. We had a really good group of folks from different walks of life, some that knew us because of the radio, some that came because of Lobo, some that came because they were listeners and didn't even know the story and learned about it while they were there.
But that's what I love about it. Like you're getting people that maybe we can't reach. This is amazing. Well, that was part of it was, Lobo, let's face it, the organ donation is not the number one, you know, nonprofit, flash, public service thing that people talk about.
There are certain things that are kind of ingrained in people. Oh, I got to help this call. I got to help that call. And they're all worthy.
But this is something that is not top of conversation lists for most people. So if we can help to bring it forward and raise money, that's what we want to do. This crew, last crew, say, well, Marty, we're all weak and we have a very good group, especially for the first one. And as soon as we got off the ship, everybody said, what are we doing this again?
And we're like, well, hold on. Let us get our, let's get rid of our sea legs and figure this out. And we had a lot of research, Maggie Sterling is our travel agent. We've worked with Maggie for years on projects with the radio station.
We have gone, gone in a different direction this year just to change it up. We're sailing out of Galveston and we're doing well Caribbean. Both of those are different. Royal Caribbean Liberty of the Seas is a gigantic ship that has more amenities than you're going to have time to let me talk about.
It was like the next step. It was, let's go to a little bit bigger ship. Let's do this a little bit bigger. We're going to go to Cosmo, Grand Cayman, Seminole Beach, most beautiful water in the world.
And then we'll, well, our third port will be Jamaica. We will stop in Jamaica. We say on May 29th, the date was picked specifically for two reasons. One, it's the week after most Canadian area schools are finished.
So that gives kids the opportunity, gives teachers the opportunity where, for Mardi Golf, some of those folks couldn't go. And May 29th is the final week before summer prices to be on for cruise line. So we were able to keep the price down a little bit. We do it after school is over.
Wow. So I'm just picturing myself on the beach there for a second. Hang tight. Come on now.
I'm trying to convince my boss to send me. I really feel like I need to experience it. So you said Maggie Sterling, her number, and correct me if I'm wrong, but I have 337 288 78 76. That's it.
And you can call Maggie that is actually that's her direct. And you can call me or a voicemail. You can actually even text her on that number as well. And she is a gym.
Maggie will do every bit of research for anyone who travels with her, even in a group like this. But what we were able to do, and we did this and I will get credit to Carnival because Carnival did something similar with it last year. And that's how we were able to raise the money. But this year, Royal Caribbean stepped up and said, we will donate a certain amount per cabin book in your group through Maggie.
So it is a donation being made in our name and in the name of Lopa from Royal Caribbean based on sales through our group. So if you want to go on this particular cruise and help raise the money, you've got to book through Maggie or Royal Caribbean. We'll know why you're there. So that's a very important part of it.
So Bon Tau Voyage. Is that right? I get it. I've been out of cadianne for a little while.
So I'm kind of resting. Bon Tau Voyage. We love it. I know where you're from.
I know that you can't get around the French mauve. You can't just get it. I love it. 337 288 78 76.
And again, this is a fundraiser for Lopa and for Christian's legacy to benefit those Christian legacy goals. And Hans, I really want to thank you and Jen both for everything again that you guys have done, especially through Christian's legacy, helping educate the public like you have, especially using a platform that you guys have. And then you talked about that kind of two-pronged thing with the Christian legacy with being able to help the families. Because obviously we're limited.
One, we're non-profit, but two, we can't help the families financially. But for you guys taking it upon yourselves and in Christian's name and honor to be able to do those type of things for the family, it's really a special thing. Well, I appreciate it. We kind of looked at what is it that's not there.
And I know that it's not that local wouldn't love to be able to do that. But you can't. But so what we did was when we set this up, we went through community foundation of the KVANA. So anybody who lives in this part of Louisiana knows CFA.
The legitimacy of CFA is without question. So when you're fledgling up and coming foundation slash fund to be your own 501c3, and our position wasn't really feasible yet to have a board of directors and we didn't really have the resources. So we went to CFA and they have been a constant to us. So anyone who has questions about it, you can go to Cappacadianna.org or you can go on to Facebook and search Christian's legacy and learn a little bit more about Christian and his story.
He's a hero on the donate website as well. But you can learn a little bit about what we're doing there. But we appreciate it. I wish we could do more.
And I'm hoping that long term we can we can out do what we even think we can do. And it's just going to take time and it's going to take an understanding of what we're trying to do. Well, we just think you guys are incredible. You're incredibly strong.
I love the way you connect with the public. And we just appreciate you guys for being the advocates that you are. Thanks for joining us. Well, we appreciate the opportunity and I'll see you in the 29 glory.
Okay. You heard that it's booked. Okay, Joe, we got that. It's on a recording.
All right. Thank you. It's a really big 102.1 on the Bontons Voyage. How's that, Joey?
It's 337-888-7876. If you have any questions specifically info at lopa.org. Here on the gifted live, we wanted to talk about how technology is helping LOPA to increase the number of potential donors. And for that, we have a very special guest.
Yes, we do. Yes. LOPA's communication center director, Ms. Cheryl Puckett.
I feel like we should have a drum roll after that. Right? Hey, Cheryl. Yeah, let's get it.
Hi guys. How you doing today? Awesome. So we're talking about the MDI log before we get into that.
So, Cheryl, I'm going to kind of go just a brief historical perspective. In the past, to become a tissue donor, you had to die or be declared dead at the hospital setting. You had to be pronounced. And then, of course, the hospitals called the call center, our communication center.
And then the referral was generated. Well, we've recently began a program that includes the use of the MDI log. So can you tell me a little bit about what that is? Absolutely.
MDI log has been quite a blessing to us, actually, because it was too but in the past, anyone who was wanting to be a tissue donor would typically pass away in the hospital in the hospital to call that referral to us. This program is actually a web-based referral system that corners can use. And it actually generates when they enter data about a decedent in their office or on their computers. That information automatically links to local's referral system and generates a referral that then becomes a working document for us to review and determine tissue suitability.
Just as I know, MDI log, people often wonder what MDI means. MDI log actually stands for medical legal investigation log. So how much has this been able to enhance the opportunities for the donor families? Oh, it's been significant over the last two years.
We've grown, we've started off small with one parish and we've added on several cents. And our hope is to even increase past this point. But what's happening is the coroner's end of this information in many cases, close to real time. So in the middle of the delay, the investigators enter an investigative summary about a decedent with all of the components that we need to know like life and in the live times and other particular medical conditions that the person had, any kind of disease states or problems or issues or even some psychosocial issues that a decedent may have had.
That information is all noted in the investigative summary. So it helps the call center staff look at a referral and make a quick determination of the ability to pursue and move forward with potential tissue donation. Or else it also helps us in some regards. There are times that it's a quick determination that perhaps that person is not a suitable candidate.
So it's very time efficient. Right. We certainly wouldn't want to offer the family the opportunity to donate and then have them say yes and then have to come back and say, oh, well, we just realized, you know, you loved one had this particular disease process. So having that information ahead of time has to be, you know, so much better, not only from an efficiency standpoint, but also better for the families.
Absolutely, because that is our goal to take care of our families. Our priorities are our donors, our families and our recipients. And it's, as you imagine, a very emotional time that we're having to approach a family and either maybe let them know, make them aware that their loved one had signed up to be in the donor registry and had intentions of being a donor. And so sometimes we're sharing that information with families because they're not quite aware, which makes it a different situation.
You know, most times families really want to fulfill the wishes of their loved one. And having still much of an extensive background that the corn is also can provide to us. It does help us to prevent the contact families that we know from review of the information would not be a suitable candidate. And Cheryl, I'm out in the community and often work with some of the coroners specifically in Livingston Parish.
But one of the other things that I heard was that it kind of cuts down on the number of phone calls having to be made and a kind of boost productivity and, you know, makes things more efficient. Absolutely. We have been just so excited out there because as you can imagine, in a month's time, the call center gets thousands of phone calls 24 hours a day, seven days a week. So any one call that can be eliminated as far as we can communicate in other viable manners like through this MBI log, if we can communicate to a coroner's office, we save them from being interrupted from something that is important to them in their day or night.
And also, we eliminate the possibility of them not being able to communicate as quickly with us maybe. So we, there's actually like a text message box on each referral that we can type in a message of a request or any information that we need. We can type in an answer and go straight to the coroner's office. And then they can do the same thing if they have special requests of us if we do a recovery and they need information from us after the recovery.
They can just put information we can communicate back and forth. You're right, no phone calls in many cases. All right, well, Michelle, we appreciate you educating us on the NDI log. I love technology.
I always say during a presentation, you never know what tomorrow will bring. And this segment helps us to see that. So thank you very much, Michelle Lopez, Communications Center Director. If you have questions about the database that we just talked about or other questions about donation info at lopa.org.
At this point in the podcast, we do want to honor a hero, a silent hero, someone who helped make life happen. This little guy, his name is Hunter. Joey, he was two and a half years old. And of course, we're getting this information from mom was adventurous, unusual amount of energy.
She says, yes, a two year old boy. I can see it. Always had a smile on his face and a twinkle in his eye. All right, thick blond hair, big, beautiful hazel eyes, long eyelashes, too huge dimples.
Just the cutest thing. Mom says he was the closest thing to heaven on earth. You have to see these pictures, lopa.org and click on faces of donation. His name is Hunter Roy.
But mom says in August of 2008, family was outside playing. It's what they did. He was running around grabbing their cat by the tail chasing the kittens. There was an accident in his life.
And they were faced with a decision about donating his organs. And mom and dad immediately agreed. He was able to donate his heart valves and his corneas. Mom says it gave me great comfort to know that those twinkling eyes were able to give sight to two people.
And she says in the days and weeks and months that followed Hunter's death, she had to make dozens, dozens of decisions. But the decision to donate his organs was by far the easiest decision that she has ever made. So Hunter Roy, cutest little face, blonde hair, see if you can remember him. Yeah, has one of our quilt swears where we honor our donors as well.
But check out faces of donation at lopa.org. But at this point in the podcast, we do want to pause and we want to say thank you to Hunter Roy for the gift of life. So Joey, we always ask everybody you have questions and then to us info at lopa.org. The question that we have come in today, do your eyes change color with cornea donation?
I get that a lot in the classroom as well, especially the younger kids. And of course, we know the answer is no, no, they don't because it's just lower the cornea that's transplanted and the cornea is just a clear covering over the eye. So the part that has the coloring, the iris is not actually transplanted that stays behind. It's the same one that the recipient was born with.
So there's no change in the color of the eye. It's just the cornea that kind of lends light covering is the only thing that's transplanted. Use the light to focus so that we can see. The more you know, Joe, I love it.
You have any questions for us info at lopa.org. And we have reached the end of yet another podcast. How exciting. This is episode 11 and we have to thank our wonderful guests who helped us learn today.
Absolutely. Special thanks to Sally Gentry for giving us all the information that you did about our family services program. Of course, Hans Nelson for creating Christian's legacy and becoming part of our Lopa family. And last but not least, Cheryl Puckett for giving us that information about the MDI Hello, how it helps provide opportunities to more donor families.
And I just wanted to remind everybody if you're interested in the cruise that Christian's legacy is helping host, you can call Maggie at 337-288-7876 to book today. They said, say on May 29th, 2016. And it sounds like a part a, we like that. And look, we know everybody's getting back into the school mode.
If there is a speaker that is needed across the state, let us know if you got a Lopa.org slash speaker, you can sign up for organ donation education. If you're a teacher, we work with your curriculum and with your time constraints in the classroom. Let us in. Let us educate.
Thanks for listening here on the Give It Life podcast.