Hello and welcome to the gifted life podcast where we have conversations about organ, tissue and eye donation. I'm Loy Steele, joining me is Joey Boudreau and this is episode 4. I'm in the community, I'm a community educator with a Louisiana organ procurement agency or LOBA. And I'm more clinical, I'm the chief clinical officer, I oversee the organ recovery division for LOBA.
Yeah, we all go our talents into the pool so that we can all make life happen and we're hoping on this podcast, we choose to join with us. And we want you to spread the word so that everyone can make an educated decision about donation and basically we're everywhere, LOBA.org. Yeah, we are, we're everywhere. We want you to subscribe to us, don't just listen at LOBA.org, we'd like you to subscribe to us on iTunes, Stitcher, Windows, Phone, Mirro, Beyond Pod, TuneIn and PocketCats.
And then once you do that, make sure you're ready to give us two thumbs up at five stores. Yeah, and we just know what you want to hear about info at LOBA.org, we're always looking for new segments, heroes to mention, different things. I want you to be included in part of this podcast. Now today on episode 4, we're going to be talking about an online effort to increase donors in our new segment.
And I'll be talking a little bit about tissue donation, give you a little more information about it. Yeah, we like to dispel myths. Today we tackle cost, tied to donation. Are there any?
In the community, LSU students are out of it again. Go Tigers, love those gills. And in our technology segment, a machine helping in our donation process. And last but not least, we're going to be honoring the hero.
You know, we're going to do this in every podcast because this is truly the reason for what we do. Yeah, our silent hero is honoring them. Plus we'll take your questions and much, much more here on the Gifted Life podcast. In our new segment here, we're going to kind of toot our own porn.
Here, Louisiana, we've been trying to increase that donor registry and we are proud to boast that we are at 2.2 million strong people who have said yes to organ donation. That's something to be proud about, right, Joey? That is. And we put it in perspective, the fact that we've got four and a half million people in the state.
So half of the population has registered to be an organ donor. And that doesn't even include pediatrics or others who don't yet have their driver's license. Yes. And now we're trying to tackle the other half of the population.
How do we reach them? This podcast is one of the ways that we're trying to do that. We're also partnering with fantastic people in the community, one of them being Ashener. And they have this cool graphic.
If you log onto the website, it's ashener.org and it's in the blog section. They have this huge heart and every time someone signs up from here on out to be a donor, that heart fills up a little bit more. So our goal is to get that whole heart red to show you all the lives that we're saving here in Louisiana. Our goal is to educate.
We think once you know about organ donation, we're more likely to say yes to organ donation. So we want to continue seeing that heart fill up. We want it all the way to the top. Yes, we can do it.
You can help us. Yes, we can. And in addition, Lori, Nate is older Americans month. And our educators want to make sure that we can let everybody know that age does not disqualify you from becoming a donor.
In fact, liver, as I've stated before in a previous podcast, the liver doesn't age chronologically. The liver ages more on how much damage you do to it. So because of that, the oldest donor in America was guests. Can you imagine?
Guess how old? Well, I know Joe, but I'll guess for you. 92. 92.
That's amazing. It is amazing. It is. I'm not sure if my liver is going to be that good at 92, but certainly hope so.
I hear you. And I share this out in the community. People are shocked because they are ruling themselves out because they're 50 or because they're on this medication or because they think they're too old. Don't do that.
Right? All those doctors and the knowledge and the know how. Let them decide if you want help save lives, let us help you. You're absolutely right, Lori.
Like I said, don't try to root yourself out. Just learn the facts at Lopodatoa. It's our recovery segment time here on the Get to Life podcast. And like we say here at Lopod, there are many different folks with many different talents.
We put those talents together and then they'd like happen. We have a special guest who's called in. He is the tissue recovery manager for Lopod, Blake Smith. How you doing today, Blake?
Hey, Joey, how's it going? I'm doing well. You know, we've talked a little bit about organ donation in previous podcasts. We talked a little bit about eye donation.
And with our organ donation subjects, we discussed how there's only a small percentage of the population that can actually become an organ donor because they have to die a certain way and that's a brain injury and brain death. But tissue donation is a much higher percentage that can become tissue donors. Why is that? That's true.
It's a completely separate thing and it's done after cardiac death. And tissue donation is unique in that we have up to 24 hours to recover tissues once the donor has passed away. And once that when they pass away, it doesn't necessarily have to be within a hospital. If they pass away peacefully at home, we're still able to, you know, within a certain time frame, we can help that family facilitate their loved ones wish of being a donor.
That's awesome. What type of tissues can be used to transplant? There are several type of operandsons. We have skin recovery.
We're able to recover patches of skin that can be used for permanent transplants for things such as trauma or certain cancers or anything like that. We can also use skin graft for temporary dressings for burn traumas. This actually helps decrease the risk for infection and it actually promotes the cell growth underneath that graft. And then also we have phone and tendons.
Long bones like the humerus or the femur for grafts that are used in spinal surgeries and things like that. And for tendons, I think some of the most common is, you know, sports or athletic injuries. You know, one of the mainstream stories that you may have heard is the Arizona Cardinals quarterback Carson Palmer. He's actually had an ACL tear a few years back.
That's right. I did hear that. Yeah, the repair was done with a donor graft. And he's actually in contact with that donor family.
Right. And also we recover saphenous veins. And common use for saphenous veins. I think everyone, you know, especially down here in Louisiana, we all know someone who's had coronary bypass surgeries.
Well, if they're like my grandpa, my grandpa would be the first one to tell you that whenever they recovered his own saphenous veins to do that bypass surgery, he'd say, you know, the recovery on his legs was way worse than the other one. The same thing to be said about the skin recovery. If you have a graft taken from your own body to heal certain traumas, that recovery can be difficult. And in addition to all these tissues that you've talked about, none of the heart is not able to be used for heart transplant.
We can also use a heart for heart valve transplant. So can you tell me a little bit more about that? Yeah, the heart is actually one of the more interesting recoveries because we're not only able to recover heart for valve, but we can actually take the conduit from the aortic arch and then also we can take pulmonary patch grafts. That's amazing.
You've mentioned so many different grafts. So how many lives can be enhanced or in some cases even saved through one tissue donor? You know, I've heard different numbers. I think the most consistent number that I've heard is 50 people, but honestly, I've heard up to 77 people.
And that is because of new grafts that we're trying to stay on the front end and cutting edge up. We've actually started a project with our processor and we're able to recover what's called a fresh osteoarticulating graft. And from that one graft alone, we can have seven more grafts. Oh, that's amazing, Lori, don't you think?
I'm always learning new stuff from you, Joey, from you, Blake. And so I always put out a request. If you guys can come with me out in the community into a classroom to a church that kind of things share your knowledge together while the impact that we can have. So I am always amazed.
Yes, just recently Blake came with me to walk refreshment high school where we have coach Swallow. We all love coach. I'm like, oh, yeah, he's quite the character. We love him.
So he has a health class. And so Joey, it was so neat because they're learning about muscles. They're learning about bones. They're learning about the circulatory system.
All these things that Blake knows a lot about. And so Blake's doing his thing. The kids are in awe looking at him, right? And then Blake also tells this personal story.
So not only does he work to save lives for these families that we get to learn and love, but also in your own family, huh, Blake? Absolutely. Yeah. And it was very near and dear to my heart on that particular day because it was the day after Monice actually had a pulmonary patch for actually, she was newborn.
I think she was three days old and they figured out that the pulmonary valve, one of them was attached to where it shouldn't be. So basically because of that surgery, her chances are survival had increased. It also had increased significantly. And within a couple of weeks, she was not only doing well, but she was going home.
That's outstanding. You know, we talk about that. It's not as much life saving in a lot of cases, but in this case, it was life saving. And it gave her a new lease on life and it gives her a chance, you know, and that is just outstanding.
You know, it doesn't necessarily have to be that major of a surgery. There's people out there that can attest to, you know, the spinal injuries and the cervical injuries that basically take them out of their everyday lives. And I would venture to say that they'll say after they've done that surgery and received a graft to correct their spinal injuries, they're able to just do the normal day things like cut their grafts and go outside. And you know, just go play ball with their kids or do anything like that.
I think that they would consider that life saving as well. Absolutely. And that's what Blake put forth in the classroom. So now Coach wants Blake at every class.
So when we spend a day, we get about over a hundred students. It's just amazing spreading this knowledge. And so that's what we say here at Loco. We have so many people with so many different talents together.
Man, the impact that we can have, we really make life happen together. So we appreciate Blake and Joey, you too, on that end, especially when we get out in the community. But we always say what will happen tomorrow? I mean, Blake's a testament.
Always knew things happening and we're on the forefront. Yes, we are. We try to stay on the cutting edge. One of our strategic anchors for LOPA is innovation.
We try to stay one step ahead of everyone else. Yes, and together, we really, I think, do a good job about that. Our core focus though is education out in the community. I just did an end of life seminar in the Dim Springs area.
One of the most asked questions was, can I have an open casket funeral? If I choose to say yes to donation, whether it be Oregon, whether it be tissue, whether it be I, can my family still have an open casket funeral. So we're taking those questions and we're answering them. Absolutely.
You can still have that open casket funeral. And one of the first things that you train on whenever you become a tissue team member is that reconstruction process. We take pride in that process. We can't help but think of the donor as a part of our family.
If that was our family member there, how would we want that reconstruction process to be? We know. And that's what we hear. We thank you Blake Smith, our tissue manager here at LOPA, and not only hard worker, but just an all-around good guy.
And he brought up a lot of information. One of the things that we do here, we want to talk more about that. We want to know what you're thinking, what you want to know more about. So info at LOPA.org.
If there was anything that Blake talked about that maybe we can discuss a little bit more about that. We can discuss a little bit more in depth. Or maybe you want clarification on info at LOPA.org. And that's for any topic about donation.
We want to spur those healthy conversations and we want to do it right here. Certainly, Laurie. And I want to thank Blake again for joining us on our podcast. This is our fourth podcast, the gifted life podcast.
And thank you for being part of it. Oh, thank you guys. I really appreciate you guys having me on. And thank you guys for all that you do.
All right. So we talked about going into the classrooms. We love our coach Swallow. And we love folks who invite us in.
It could be a church. It could be a civic group. It could be a school. We are very flexible on how long we speak, what we focus on.
But we want to hear from you. So just go to lopa.org slash speaker. Lopa.org slash speaker. Easy to remember, let us know what you're looking for.
We are happy to accommodate. Yeah, Laurie. Contact us because ultimately education saves lives. We need your help in giving us the right venue so that we can spread, bargain, tissue, and eye donation.
We've seen how much of an impact is made. In fact, in tissue donation, we've seen a 25% increase just last year in tissue donors. It's amazing. Music to my ears, though, momentum is there.
Let's keep it going. Join our team. On this gifted life podcast, episode four, exciting. We are talking about myths that we often encounter out in the community, in the hospitals, at the OMBs.
We want to squash those and want to replace those with the facts. One of the things Joey that I hear about a lot, how much will donation cost? Because I know donation costs, not even. Well, donation is again.
Right, Joey? It truly is a gift. There is no cost to the donor or donor family for donation. Now, of course, the hospital bills and the charges that were incurred prior to Lopa's involvement will still be charged to the family.
But everything that happens from the time that family says yes is incurred by Lopa. All those costs are incurred by Lopa. They don't get billed to the family, even including the actual gift of life itself, that gift of that organ to the recipient. The recipients don't pay for the heart or they don't pay for the liver.
They might not have to pay for the hospital cost on that end, but it is truly a gift from one self to another. And working with those recipients is quite the gift. So we thank you for learning about donation, for listening to donation, which would help spread the word. And if you have any questions that you'd like to ask us or any more information, info at Lopa.org.
We want to make sure that you are armed with all the facts possible so that you say yes to donation. And we have reached our community segment here on the gifted life podcast. And I'm out in the community as a community educator, especially here in Baton Rouge. And I am all pumped up about our LSU fighting tires.
I'm always interested in LSU, especially when it comes to organ donation. It's right in the awareness. Yeah, when they're helping, we have this cool professor, one of the schools to say cool, but Dr. James Bruceard, who allows these students to choose a nonprofit with which to work.
And Lopa is always included. We love it. And here's what they're up to now. And joining us now is Courtney McGuffie, and she is one of our LSU Go-Getters.
I love my little LSU class. You guys just do so much. Dr. Jinks, you can't get better than her.
And I know that she pushes you guys. And I know when I was a student, I probably wouldn't have liked that very much. But it's really, you know, adds to your success, right? Definitely.
Jinks has been the hardest professor I've taken at Man Shift, but I have grown so much as a PR professional. And because of her, I know I'm prepared to go out into the real world because we're able to do these service learning and to interact with groups such as Lopa. It's a growing experience and it builds our portfolio, but actually teaches us how a career is going to be like. I really enjoy it.
So take us into the classroom. You get assigned a nonprofit. Unfortunately for us, you were assigned Lopa. Yes, it's cool.
And we have a very early organ donation. We agree with you. This girl is good, y'all. Okay, so you're assigned Lopa and then what happens?
So basically it's a 18-week long campaign that we do. You walk into the classroom, you're split up into teams of four. So I have eight awesome members on my team. We were assigned this Lopa.
So what we do is we get to meet with them. How can we help them grow? What are their weaknesses? What are their strengths?
We do a SWAT analysis. And then we plan a campaign. We're required to plan and host a new event on campus. We're trying to win a national award and bring it home for Lopa two years in a row.
You will. So we have to host a new event on campus. We had to define our public. We had to raise awareness among high school students, college students, but even more particularly among the minority audience because there was such a need for minority donors.
So we're able to develop this book into the semester where we have to present Lopa with what we have done, who we have signed up, and hopefully with the successful campaign. Okay, so I just want to bring everybody back to your last semester in college, right? So you're probably working. You have all these classes, probably doing an internship, at least I was.
So there's a lot on your plate and then you can assign Dr. Jinks and this huge project. So Joey, with me? I am.
We're a good student Joey. I was good up until, you know, grade school. Exactly. Okay, we figured right guys.
All right. So, Courtney, that's where you are. You're working on it. And I know you're a little gogetter.
And then you get assigned this huge project. You even get assigned to third job. Is this a no project? It's a no project.
It's true. And then Dr. Jinks says, you know, a campaign like this and her estimation would be over $50,000 that we would have to pay in the real world. But you guys do it for free.
Because we love you guys, of course, but it's an awesome experience and it's worked, you know, all the time, the late nights that we put into it because, like I said, we would not graduate as prepared as it was for you guys teaming with us, but it's just been awesome to learn and to grow as professionals. A.M., 11 p.m., Ms. Lori, are you still up? And of course I have a newborn, so yes, I was.
So anyway, so that's pretty fun. But your goal was to increase awareness and to increase our donor registry. Correct. So we have surpassed that.
Right, definitely. We have been able to reach out to all of our target audiences. Like I said earlier, our high school students, our college students, our Baton Rouge area, our minorities, we've been able to reach out to all of them so far we signed up over 80 people. So that's just a start.
And as we continue with this campaign, we will sign up and we will sign up and work and save more lives. And so Joey there on campus, they're doing table sits. They're bringing free food. So I mean, you were a college student.
Do you remember? That brings you in, right? Absolutely. Any time I had free food, I was there.
You were there and you were listening. So in Louisiana, we've already signed up 2.2 million folks. And so how do you reach the other half? That's where these guys come in.
So just an incredible program, an incredible professor as well. Dr. James, you can't say enough about it, right, Joey? You can't.
It's quite amazing what Courtney and the group have done. Because they've signed 80 people to the registry. And with 80 people signed, that's potentially 720 transplants alive, saying from those 80 people. So it's remarkable what they've been doing.
I'm curious, Courtney, what do you know about organ donation coming into this project? And what did you learn? And what do you think about it now? I have grown so much in learning so much.
Coming into this class, all I knew about organ donation was, I said, yes, it's a driver's license. And I got hard. I had no idea. It was so complex.
I had no idea that somebody could save over, or save and enhance over 61 lives through organ-tissue donation. When Lori sat down with us, it was amazing. I was in awe. In fact, our first meeting, we could not even ask her questions because they were just like, share us your knowledge.
There's so much you can learn about organ donation. And it's so much more than just saying yes on your license. Absolutely. And this class, and Courtney, really the gift that keeps on giving because, Joni referenced 80, we're still getting registration forms in tied to the campaign they're doing.
We have new contacts with the driver in schools across the state, which is amazing. They want us to come in. They want us to help. We've given them DVDs.
So that's amazing in itself. So new partnerships. She's been traveling. We've been doing presentations.
So it's just amazing what can happen. And you and I always talk about if we give them a little bit of education, folks really get involved in organ donation. We see that every semester at LSU. It's just amazing.
Absolutely. Once they're educated, everyone wants to help others. You know, in general, especially in South Louisiana, people want to help. And once you learn a little bit about organ donation, it's hard to say no.
So it's so good. It's so wonderful what they've been doing for us. Yes. The gift that keeps on giving Ms.
Courtney McBuffie and her team impact communications. I like that impact communications. You guys are having an impact. Not only now, but after you graduate and go on.
So what are your plans after you graduate? Because that date is coming up. Y'all, it's 23 days away. I will be a college graduate.
Seems like just yesterday. My plans right now are still up in the air. It's all in God's hands where I end up going. I hope to work for a costly PR firm and advertising firm and get in the feet wet.
Start from the bottom, but make a name for myself. I have a passion for nonprofits. Work with organizations like you guys and just go from there. Yeah.
Well, I know that she has a bright future. Joey, I've worked with her. She gets things done. She rallies the troops.
You know, we love that. We love you, Courtney. Thank you so much. Yes.
And we love LSU, Dr. Jinx. We just can't thank them enough. We love Dr.
Bruce. Sorry. And these LSU students are not through yet. They are the gift that keeps on giving.
We have our Robley Run For Life here in the Baton Rouge area that is scheduled for October 3rd, the first Saturday in October. And Courtney and her crew called Impact Communications Actually Designed Flyers in a T-shirt, which will be used to help promote and on the day of the race. Pretty nice. It is.
And I love the fact that they've incorporated Donate. D-E-A-U-X, Donate. Our part mascot. You know, that's a really nice part of mine.
I love it. They bring that little mascot to life. And they really are just an amazing group of students who maybe at first were a little standoffish donation. But once learning about it, and they're in that passion really shows, we just love our LSU crew.
Here on the Get To Like podcast, we always like to throw in a little technology, what's new on the horizon, what's helping us in a donation process. And there's something that you guys have been using for quite some time that's helping us buy some time, really. Yeah. And that's the kidney perfusion pump.
You know, it's kind of worked twofold. It's one of those things that actually dates back quite a few years we've been using it. But it mimics the body's physiological pumping, like the heart pumping into the kidneys. So we can actually see how the kidneys are flowing, how they're pumping, how they're working, so to speak.
But in addition to that, it allows us to extend that time frame to where the kidneys can be allocated. So if we're trying to find a home for the kidney, usually they're good if they're sitting on ice for about 16 to 24 hours. It extends that time frame. Sometimes up to 48 hours.
So it really works in two benefits. It tells us, all right, well, this is a good kidney. And secondly, it extends that time frame. So it's not just sitting on ice where it's kind of receiving some damage.
I love to hear these stories about what we know now. And what can you learn in the future? I mean, there's so many things happening. I just love it.
And we try to bring that to the forefront here on the Get to Life podcast. It is that time of the podcast where we pause to honor a hero. This episode's hero is Antonio Bennett. And this is close to my heart because when I started at LOPA, I got involved with Antonio's family.
This was my first donor family as an employee here at LOPA. And I was just rolling in from the very beginning. And Antonio, just a vibrant character from how his mom describes him. And when you listen to mom describe him, you can just see him.
And he's so full of life and so loving. And there was a fatal injury that he suffered. He became an ordinary donor because they talked about it. And the really cool thing about this story is, Antonio knew about donation because his mom was a recipient.
She's a cornea recipient. So she can see the world in a different way because someone said yes. He knew that. They talked about donation and he was for it.
So when they were at that junction about donation, they said yes. One of the other things about the story is that Antonio was honored in the Rose Parade. Every year, LOPA sponsors families who go to the Rose Parade to see their loved ones face in a floor graph. In a floor graph, I didn't know, Joey, but I've learned from here working with LOPA is a picture of this loved one of this hero made of all flower materials from the eyebrows, to the lips, to the hair.
I mean, it's just an amazing thing. If you hadn't seen it, you're willing to check this out. But Antonio's floor graph is mostly done in California sent here for the parents to complete it. So they completed his eyebrows.
And it's all of flower made in material. It was sent back to California. It was poems flow and it was seen in front of the nationwide audience. So it was just really something spectacular to see.
We still work with Antonio's mom. She has moved to a different state, but she still helps us here in Louisiana because we still talk about her son. We still honor her son. And that's just a cool story all the way around.
He's our hero. Yeah. And at this point, I'm gonna pause and just say, thank you, Antonio Bennett, for the gift of life. I promise we would tackle your questions.
And we are. This one came into info at lopa.org. And hey, if you have a question, you want us to tackle a subject here on the Get to Life podcast. You wanna hear from you?
If you say, hey, Joey needs to do this, I will tell him. So send it to us at info at lopa.org. One of the questions that came in, what's the difference between donating your body to science and being an organ, I, and tissue donor? And I did this a lot in the community.
Joey, I just went to an end of life seminar. And a lot of folks were saying, hey, funerals are expensive. I'm looking at donating my body to science, but I wanna be an organ donor. What do I do?
Well, in fact, you can, it is possible, to become an organ donor and to donate to body to science. And that is a difference. Donating your organs, tissues, and eyes. They're for transplant, as we've talked about before.
So you can actually save someone's life directly or directly enhanced through orientation and eye donation. When you donate your body to science, generally speaking, you're usually donating to a medical school, where they'll use for education purposes. And some schools allow you to become an organ and tissue donor and then still donate your body to science, where others won't. So it's important for you to find that right school.
If organ donation is important, you know, as it is to us, obviously, that's important for you to search for the right place, the right medical school. So that's both donating your body to science. And you can also save lives. Yes, and so we want you to find that information out.
And we partner with you. We have great folks who are working on that each and every day to make it easier for you. But if you have specific questions, like we said, info at lopa.org. And also, lopa.org is just a one-stop shop for lots of information about donation.
We want you to empower you. We want you to have those conversations about donation. And we hope that this podcast starts that up. All right, we have come to the close episode four of the gift of life.
Can you believe Joey? Four down, and then more to come. We're sounding podcast savvy. We're liking that.
But we want to thank our guests today. They were enlightening. Yes, I mean, I really want to express our appreciation for Blake Smith, who's our tissue recovery manager. He certainly shed some light on tissue donation for us.
Then our little future leader, Courtney McGuffie, she's with our LSU crew, Impact Communications, helping to save lives through World Endowment. And, Joey, I would like to take the time to say thank you to some very special people who help us here on the gift of life because we get to be the faces, the names, the voices. But Troy, Kirsten, Chuan, our local staff. This is a group effort, buddy.
And really, thanks to Troy and the team for really helping us out. And, you know, giving us a good information to talk about and helping us to sound up. And just overall for patients, right? Yes.
For patients with you and I as we get this podcast thing going. So we got just a good group of folks together. And we just want to say thank you. And also, if you have heroes out there and you want to share their story, we want to hear from you.
And we want to highlight them on our website. But send them to us at info at loca.org, info at loca.org. We always look for a picture we love to put faces with stories. We think that is just impactful.
So we want you to send us their pictures, send us their stories and join us and help spread the word about the gift of life podcast. As always, we thank you for listening. And we'll talk to you again on episode five.