The Teach LIFE Tookit

Hello and welcome to the gifted life podcast where we have conversations about organ tissue and eye donation and transplantation. You can always find us at thegiftedlife.org. I'm Lori Steele. I'm Joey Boudreau.

I'm Sarah Blakemore. Coming up on this episode today. We'll tell you about teacher life to kit and the science teacher behind it all. And we're always trying to strengthen our relationships, right?

So we're gonna get you some tips. Okay. All that and more right here, the Gifted Life.org. The Gifted Life podcast welcomes Kelly Petaki.

How are you? Great. How are you this morning? Oh, we are so honored to speak with you.

She's a science teacher, a donation champion, guys. And she hails from Illinois. Amazes. I went from Heights, Illinois.

Oh, I love it. So we want to talk about donation. So we have a science teacher. So you're in the classroom.

You're doing all these amazing things and you decide, ah, I don't have enough of my play. Let me add one more thing. Donation champion. So talk about your tie to donation and why that's an important part for you.

You know, this is my 27th year teaching. I can't believe I've been here this long. And in 2002, that's the first time that we actually started to educate our students about organ donation and tissue donation. And so we're going on 20 years now.

And it was just one of those topics that so many people are not knowledgeable about. There's so many myths and misconceptions that are out there. So we started to reach out to different organizations and we started with a passive on program 20 years ago. And that was a great starting point.

And we basically take all of the information, the general facts, and we disseminate to all of our freshmen by all the class. So all the freshmen in her to high school will receive the same information regarding organ donation and tissue donation. I love that. It's like, oh, makes me so excited.

Yeah, all these people are hearing about this. Yeah. So we have about 500 freshmen every year that are gaining this knowledge. What's great is then the following year or the year after that, they're ready to go get their driver's license.

And they can make an educated informed decision on whether or not they would like to be an organ donor. Very strategic on that. Like that. So in biology, we're very fortunate because we can actually embed the curriculum in a variety of different units.

So whether we're studying stem cells or if we're studying body systems or biotechnology, the topic, the curriculum of organ and tissue donation, it fits in very, very nicely. And the main goal is to obviously educate our students about the actual facts and statistics regarding organ and tissue donation. And even more importantly, we want them to go home and have that conversation with their families because as horrible, nobody wants to talk about, you know, losing a loved one. But if that was something did happen and there was a horrific situation and they had to make that decision for their loved one or not, they wanted to donate their organs or tissues, it would be, oh my gosh, I can't even fathom trying to make that decision without having a conversation with my loved one.

And so hopefully if someone were to encounter that circumstance, they would be able to, you know, at least know that they have honored their loved ones wishes and hopefully that would be able to provide them a little bit of comfort during that very challenging time. Yeah. And you know, Kelly, we have our own programs down here in Louisiana where we educate our students and I work with families and talk about organ donation and I have worked with the family who they were directly impacted and they made their decisions based off of the information given to the student who brought it home and the whole family had a conversation about organ donation. And so when it came time, the decision was already made and it really did ease that family's process and it made it a lot simpler for them.

They didn't have to have these hard conversations because they already had them. It definitely impacts families. My question is, how has the program evolved from where it started to where it is now? So where it started, we would spend typically, I would say 30 minutes, that was it.

That was what we would embed into our program. We would show a short video, perhaps give a pretest prior to the video to see to access, you know, what do they know? What do they think they knew about organ and tissue donation? And then we would show a short video and then have a quick discussion.

So that's where it started very early. We started to reach out to different programs such as the National Kid and Need of Foundation and donate life and they started to provide us with speakers. So then we brought in speakers who really tied in that personal piece of that puzzle. So we've had speakers come in who had discussed that they were a living kidney donor and they were part of a kidney chain.

We've had parents come in and speak to students where their child died tragically in a car accident and then they had to figure out whether or not they wanted to donate their child's organs and tissues and that was prior to having any conversation. So there was a lot of hard-wrenching discussions that we heard over the years. And then about 10 years ago, one of our math teachers, he's retired, but he had a double cornea transplant so the other is recent med. And since he retired, he now travels around the schcosmant area speaking to high school, again to educate a lot of students about the importance of organ and tissue donation.

So now prior to our teacher's life toolkit, we have been for probably past 10 years or so. We give them a pre-test, we have been showing them a Jason Ray video about a person who had passed away and his organs, head and tissues were donating. They met the families and it was, again, it was very, just really hit everybody at home, very personal. And then down Brawie, who was our retired teacher, he would speak to all the freshmen, he would have all the freshmen in the theater and he would present the factual information of the statistics and then he would explain his personal experience with the interest of tissue recipients.

He would also bring in another speaker as well. So we have had parents whose child received a liver as an infant. We have had a person who received no bone marrow transplant. So we have a variety of speakers that now come in and present.

Love, love our volunteers who take the time to go into the classroom and to allow these students to ask these questions. I know when we bring our volunteers in the classroom, they ask how many medications are you taking or do you have a scar or different things like that. What kind of questions do you guys get when you have these folks who have been touched by donation that come in and sit in your classroom? Well, a lot of times they will ask, you know, how long do they have to be on the medication?

How long were they in the hospital? Perhaps, you know, what is the prognosis? Is there, because we've had someone who came in and so who was a kidney recipient and she needed another kidney. And so she had multiple kidney donations and she was receiving from multiple kidney donations.

So that was, you know, pretty interesting. So then they would ask questions, okay, well, how many medications is this for the rest of your life? Is this for the first month? You know, how often do you have to go with the doctor?

There's a lot of great questions. Yeah, I love it because they're listening. You know, they're interacting. I love that part.

Exactly. And so I'm trying to hit on the myths that are out there like, okay, you know, how many of you think this and that kind of stems from the true, our pre-test where it's kind of like a true false questionnaire. And it is amazing, you know, the great questions that will arise from the pre-test. Like, well, I thought that if a person had this religious background, they wouldn't be able to donate or if a person was a certain age, they wouldn't be able to donate.

And so it's just really interesting. I love it. Let's also talk about your partnership with the Mad Dog Strong Foundation. We love them as well.

They are here on the Get to Life podcast. If you're listening, you can go back to episode 131 to learn all about Mad Dog Strong. But how did you guys get connected and what happened when you guys connected and what are you doing now? When Mad Dog Strong Cindy reached out to me, she basically sent an email questionnaire just asking if our school had done anything regarding organ and tissue donation.

And then I just responded back what we've been doing over the years. And so she decided to contact me and other sense, it's like, do you want to be a part of this team where we are going to be creating a curriculum for all of Illinois? And of course, I was thrilled to be a part of it. So it's been quite an honor to work with people who are literally right there in the trenches.

They have been through it all in honor of many and working closely with Gift of Hope, just coming together and coming up with all of the objectives and aligning everything to the state standards. It's been very fulfilling and I'm really excited to utilize it this spring. I have to imagine you mentioned Gift of Hope. I've worked with those guys for quite some time.

I know some of them from Wigaway back. They've got to be pretty excited with your program. And so I just had to have a tremendous impact on an increase in donation rates or increase in people signing up on the registry. Have they conveyed anything to you guys?

Have they collected any information, any data on that? You know, I haven't heard anything from them directly. However, when we have our speakers, for instance, our retired math teacher, Don Rali, he works closely with them and he will say that they have told him that they definitely have seen an increase in students signing up to donate their organs and tissues. We haven't implemented the Teach Life Toolkit.

So hopefully, when this becomes more utilized throughout the state of Illinois, we will really see that surge in donation, you know, people signing up to be donors. And with interest, even though a lot of people think, oh yes, I would like to be a donor, for whatever reason, they don't get around to it. They don't take the minutes to go out and find or to check that box when they're renewing their driver's license. And it's so easy to sign up.

And I think people also think that, well, if everybody's signing up, there's that be plenty of organizations. Yeah. That's not the reality. So tell us about the Teach Life Toolkit and what exactly is in it?

So the Teach Life Toolkit, it has five different modules that we've created. And this is going to allow teachers, regardless of the level of student that they teach, it's going to be directed for high school students, but regardless that they teach freshmen through seniors, they can spend one day on the topic, embed it into their curriculum, they can spend a week on the topic. So we've divided it up into five modules. So we have a one day module where it's literally a lesson plan and they can have a cream.

It's made video, which is exceptional. It's current. It's very professionally done. And it is about many strong, right?

So many strong. And that video is so touching and pelling, but not only does it really hit on that personal aspect of here, we have a young individual who passed away unexpectedly, very tragically, but the whole process, you know, the conversation that was had before and what led up to her untimely death and everything that the family has participated in and promoted since that time has been really incredible. So the one day module is basically they can, teachers can show a 30 minute video talking about Maddie, talking about how to become an organ donor, how to start that conversation with a parent or guardian with their family members, talk about how to sign up to become an organ donor, distinguish between what a living donor, what a deceased donor, what organs and tissues can actually be donated and really clarifying the factual information and making sure that we, you know, eliminate and those myths and misconceptions. And we're very, very clear on the actual truths regarding organ and tissue donation.

Unless I'm cheering over here, Kelly, that's great. So I mean, it's a really great one. So it could be, you know, show that 30 minute video. Maybe we have a pre-test as well, give that pre-test, show that 30 minute video.

We have a discussion questions that can be utilized whether they want them to respond, you know, as they format or just have a conversation with each other. We have an optional web quest that just covers the basic information. All of this information is literally on the web page for Teach Life Toolkit and they click on it and they can access everything. We also have all of the answer keys ready to go for the educators as well.

They would just have to email the Teach Life Toolkit, their email that is there and they would be sent the key as well. So you can do this in a one day, 50 minute class period. We also have, if they would prefer to show shorter videos instead of that 30 minute video regarding Maddy. We have multiple videos that are between one and two minutes, like eight different videos.

Again, very short personal stories of people who have experienced organ donation, they're being a recipient or even a living donor. And then we have a PowerPoint presentation and that goes along with it as well. So whatever the teacher wants to utilize, it's right there ready for them to go. So it could be, let's do a pre-test video, create a session, okay?

Or it could be something more in long line, okay, we're going to do a pre-test, we're going to watch a video, we're going to do the presentation with a PowerPoint and we're going to make it a little bit lengthier of a, you know, a severe shortage unit, maybe a one to two-day image. So it's great, it's anything and everything like a teacher could want that fits within their schedule and what's best for their classroom. Is this something that other states can use? Absolutely, I would say other states can definitely use this.

Some of the information, the statistics that we have are from Illinois, but absolutely, the general information, all of the details and the intricacies about organ donation, it's the same, you know, regardless of what state. So absolutely, they would be able to use that information. And then the teacher wanted to spend more on this topic. So for our freshmen, we'll do a one day, right?

One day program. And again, the goal is to educate them and to have them go home and have this conversation with their families. Then with my upperclassmen, I teach seniors. I will have the opportunity to go in greater detail.

So we have four more modules that we've created that goes into the history of transplantation. Organ and tissue donation, the actual transplant process, looking at the anatomy of the different organs and tissues that can be transplanted and looking at how organ and tissues are allocated, looking at the process of transplantation. We also have a module that focuses on the professionals that are involved. I mean, it takes a very large team to, you know, make this all happen successfully.

So we look at all the different professionals that are involved. And then lastly, we have a module on the social emotional responses to the donation, looking at survivors' guilt of transplant recipients. I can speak to this, my brother actually just had a transplant in May. And it was very unaffected.

But this thing, it was very emotional. He definitely had that survivors' guilt where, oh my gosh, this is the first year of his family, doesn't have their loved one on things, even as a first thing, even without, you know. There's a lot of emotional and social responses that go along with it. So we have an entire module that covers that topic as well, looking at transplant games and the organ procurement organization and how they provide support to the donor families throughout the entire process.

I love that. I love that you guys pretty much educate the entire gambit of everything about from it, like you said, the psychosocial, emotional. And I was going to ask earlier, the clinical part, the clinical guy, that gets my juices flowing. And the fact that you guys go take it from the historical perspective and then the organ systems themselves, obviously from a science class, that would be very pertinent, very relevant.

So I love what you guys are doing, you know, kind of from the 30,000 foot view taking every angle toward it. It's interesting. I didn't realize. So your brother, so you do have a personal tie.

So how is that going now? It's going incredibly well. It's something that was completely unexpected. And he was hospitalized for three months.

And all of a sudden, he's going to die without a transplant. And he was within two weeks. He was evaluated, put on the list and received an organ. And I mean, it has really taken the meaning for what we've been doing for the last 20 years or so, to a whole new level.

I was going to say, so most people when they do experience what your brother went through, they don't have any background knowledge. You know, it's starting from scratch, trying to learn every aspect of it. And here you are with this wealth of information, wealth of knowledge going in. I guess it probably is almost a blessing and a curse, right?

Absolutely. Knowing what the outcome is, the probability that he would actually be put on the list and then get an organ in time. I mean, there were a lot of things working against him. And the stars aligned.

And again, the most incredible gift that anybody could ever give and that my brother was able to receive is unbelievable. And I try to talk to someone like, regardless of it's horrible that this individual passed away. But regardless if you had this organ or not, that outcome would still have occurred. So, you know, this person obviously wanted to, you know, pass that on, pass that gift on to you and now you need to cherish it.

And then they're missing. We are actually evolving. Yeah. And now you have this hero that you can tell that story each time you teach your children, which is amazing.

I'm going to pick your brain one more time. So I'm out in the community and we try to make these partnerships like you guys have with Mandel Strong, you have to hope. So if we have someone listening and they want to partner with a teacher, they want to reach out and say, man, teach lifetoolkit.com, we saw this, we heard this on the gift of life, great information. How do we implement that?

How do you suggest we go about that? I would say the first thing they can do is reach out to one of us and we, you know, can kind of go through the process, how this whole project basically started. And I would also encourage them to reach out to any of the organizations that are in third area, like the gift of hope or donate life for the National Kidney Foundation. And just starting to talk to people, it's amazing.

The more I know, the more people who have had some type of experience with Oregon and tissue donors, even if it's a blood donation. So I think the first thing they can do is reach out to one of us and I would be more than happy to sit down and talk to someone about how we went about this process and where we started and just to say research, some of the programs that are in their area because I will guarantee that programs would love to work and partner with educators so that they can form these these lines of how to educate a public and have more individuals involved in the whole tissue and Oregon donation. Love it. Kelly, add LOPA and the gift of life to your resource list.

We'd be happy to partner as well and make life happen. Here on the gift of life, we always say one person. It takes one person to make a difference. And we found her, huh?

Yeah. Kelly, Pataki out of Illinois. Thank you, ma'am. Thank you so very much.

And this is quite an honor for me. Here on the gift of life, we take a moment for mental health. Yes. So I'm very interested to hear what you've got to say on this subject because it's near and dear to my heart.

Yes. Well, we all are hoping to always build our relationships. We talk about that a lot, how to communicate better, all this stuff. But let's specifically talk about our romantic relationships.

We're going to give you five tips to strengthen it. Oh, wait. Hang on. I got my pen.

Okay. We got to write this down. And this is all from marriage counselors, marriage and family, people who work with people to strengthen their relationships. So the first one, let's boost that oxytocin guys.

How do we boost that? Oh, wow. Physical touch. So like holding hands, cuddling on the couch.

It's very important to, we know the importance of physical human touch. So that can just boost that for you and bring about a better, stronger connection. So instead of sitting six feet apart on the couch at night when you're watching Yellowstone, sit next to each other, hold each other's hands, all that good stuff. It's always good to physically touch your partner.

Kissing the cheek as we're passing in the kitchen or something like something real nice. It just gives you a little boost and makes you feel connected. And seen. Yes.

The next feeling seen is we're going to spend some quality time together. So research actually shows that you should be doing weekly dates. No, it doesn't mean we have to go out. I know we're in COVID times, we've already prayed, but weekly have 30 minutes at the minimum to just be together.

So do something together, whether it's meal, a glass of wine, watching your favorite show together, but make sure you make time outside of your kids, friendships and be together. You hear this? I actually, I need to go to your business. Life has gotten so busy, we even took the 30 minutes to go to the grocery store.

That's a great day. We actually did that a couple nights ago. So next we're going to commit to our share goals. So most partners have goals.

A lot of times they're unsaid. Go ahead and say them. Commit to your career goals, your financial goals, your home improvement. Write them down, have a conversation and commit together.

It really helps you get on the same page and it reaffirms that you're kind of in this together. We're also going to uplift our partner. So we're going to give them praise. We're going to maybe write a little love note.

I don't know. Something where you are just showing them you are appreciated, loved and cared for. I'm getting air in my tires this morning. So I had to roll out of bed to make sure my tires were like, that's love to me.

It's my love language. That's not lifting you. I'm telling him like he's telling you you you're cared for. Yeah.

It would be safe. Little things like that. It doesn't have to be these grand gestures. It could be something as small as like having fun together.

Just like doing something to reconnect and uplift each other. Last night I was dealing with a lot of work things going on. And so I didn't really, I wasn't any help to my wife. And she was, she took down the tree decorations and then she turned everything over into Motigra becomes a Motigra tree.

And I made sure to tell her because it was beautiful. I said, thank you so much. It is such a beautiful tree. Oh, she could have helped.

Yeah. Just help you like just, we talk about that actually just a little bit of gratitude every day, just expressing gratitude to each other every day to me. I noticed a huge difference. Yeah.

And she feel good. Like your partner sees you and loves you and wants you to do well and appreciates when you do. But just as I know, would you have helped her with them or do you know, like to make it look better? I want to take the other piece down.

So not the, she's not going to let me mess with the tree. I was just going to take it down with the boxes. And all I really got to do is put the whole boxes in that. Right.

That's right. The hard work. But last but not least, is my favorite is try something new. So we hear from a lot of couples that they get kind of stuck in ruts, the same routines, especially if you have kids, you wake up at a certain time and you go, you get home and you're exhausted.

Make time to do something that's totally new. My fiance and I, like recently we're getting old now, I feel like, but like we were like, like two puzzles. But it was something new that we had never done before and we've been together almost three years and we had never done a puzzle and it just brought in this like, I don't know, this like energy, I know it's so boring to do a puzzle, but like we did something new and we actually enjoyed doing it together and we had movie on in the background. It doesn't have to be this huge like climb Kilimanjaro no, but it can be something little that you do together that reunites kind of your time together.

I like that. You want to swap tour, live in a kitchen country and whole laugh and it's my first time. Oh my God. Yeah, I did.

Yeah, I did. I connected when you do something new together because it's a shared experience then. New memories. Yeah.

I like it. All right. Maybe have a topic you'd like Sarah to cover. Just email us info at the gifted life dot org.

All right guys and our question and answer segment. Lori, this one's going to be for you is organ donation required learning for all students. That is my hope. Yeah.

No state, most states, it's not required. But the great thing is that every organ procurement organization or OPO that we call it here on the podcast and they offer free training. So you can go to like Lopa dot org. You can request a speaker that's just happened on social media.

Some lady commented. I'm looking for a speaker for my class. I'd like to talk about organ donation, then one friend, ten another friend, that tech another friend and then they got to us. And so when that happens, I love that we're invited in.

We're flexible. I know here at Lopa, we work with the teachers and their timelines because we know, especially with COVID, things are so different. So we just want to make it the best experience for all. I mean, what the education going out.

So we love every opportunity. So if you have one out there, call us up. Yep. That's a great question.

Definitely listen to Lori. And please call us because it's free. If you have another question for us on the podcast, give us a call at 504-648-3477. In every episode of the gift of life, we honor a hero.

Today, we honor Stephanie and Nicole Barlow. And we learn about Stephanie from her family. She was so full of life and love and loved by all, always there to help a good friend, a wonderful big sister, a loving granddaughter, and most importantly, a beautiful loving daughter in the light of my life. She was an avid dancer in both her personal life and on squads and high school and college.

We all miss her terribly. But I know that one day, I will see her again. When we were approached by the Lopa people in the hospital, my first reaction was, no way. I'm not bearing my daughter cut to pieces.

My ex-husband did the listening. And when I came to grips that she was not going to make it, I realized that this would have been what Stephanie wanted. And she probably would have said, oh, mom, I want to do this. It turned out to be a very good thing for us.

And it saved five people's lives that night. God bless everyone who makes this decision, and the ones that are on the receiving end. And now we pause and say thank you, Stephanie, for the gift of life. And that'll do it for episode 180 of the gift of life.

Thanks for listening. And remember, you can register anytime. As an organ tissue and eye donor at registerme.org. Special thanks to Miss Kelly Pataki, one of our new favorite teachers.

She's a good one. Yeah, just the impact that she's had. If you think about it over almost 20 years, the number of people who have probably registered and become donors because of her and the impact that she has no ideas on for which it is. And she's keeping going.

I love that in honor of her brothers donor and all those donors that she's come across. The best place to find us here at the gift of life is the gift of life.org. You can listen to any of our episodes on our website or wherever you like to listen, whether it's Apple, Google, Spotify, or iHeartRadio. If you do, listen on Apple, go ahead and rate, review, subscribe so that others can find the podcast.

On social, like our page, it's the gift of life podcast on Facebook. You can also follow us on Twitter and Instagram at giftedlifepod. One more ask you guys, or yes, that you go out and do something you wouldn't only do to help us make life happen. Until next time.

This is a production of LOPA, or the Louisiana Organ Procurement Agency. The gift of life is hosted by Lori Steele, Joey Buudrow, and Sarah Blakemore, our executive producer is Kirsten Heis, producer is Shalom Caraway. Intern is Rebecca Rannam, and we are recorded, engineered and mixed in our Covington, Louisiana studio by Troy Perez.