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Rebecca White Cycles On
Written for a News Bulletin
by Rebecca White
Right now your heart is beating at approximately 70 beats a minute, which equates to about five liters of blood being oxygenated and pumped around your body roughly in the time that it has taken you to read this sentence.
Further more your bone marrow ensured that 180 million new red blood cells were sent pouring into your system. Yesterday, and today and tomorrow your kidneys will filter 180 liters of blood; they will manage your fluid balance, salt balance, calcium metabolism, hormone secretion, hemoglobin levels and eliminate your blood of poisons. Since you turned to this article you have taken in about 9-10 liters of air, that’s about 550 liters of pure oxygen per day.
Your blood via the heart has picked up this air oxygenating your entire body and nourishing your brain to keep you alive. Not to mention that your lungs have now eliminated the carbon dioxide in your body so that your heart can keep beating. This morning you probably ate breakfast and your pancreas secreted the right amount of the right digestive enzymes to ensure your food was appropriately broken down and used, and you probably didn’t think to consult your liver to store the sugar you ate and process the sugar you don’t need so that you don’t fall into a coma. You get the point.
Every second, every minute and every day your body functions in ways you and I cannot understand. Chances are you haven’t encountered countless hours of hospital visits and admissions this last year, chances are your not hooked up to a machine that will filter your blood as your kidneys no longer work.
Chances are you are you don’t attach yourself to an oxygen pump when you need to walk to the bathroom. It’s likely you haven’t given a urine and blood test sample every fortnight or 7 years. It’s likely you haven’t injected yourself, or your child up to twelve times today with substances that help growth, metabolism, hormone function or digestion. Chances are your immune system functions at 100%, and you don’t battle weekly and monthly infections. Chances are your body isn’t failing, shutting down and struggling to complete its tasks. Chances are you are not dieing, you’re not governed by disease, you’re not waiting, and you’re not hoping that some how you will survive the next three months. Chances are that your world and my world are vastly different.
Two and a half years ago I had a kidney transplant, after years of battling disease I finally entered into the world that you live every day. Thanks to my mum, who donated me her kidney I live in a world enriched with life, freedom, energy and health. A world that once was foreign to me and the 2000 participants that competed in the World Transplant Games in August. An event designed to bring together transplant recipients from all over the globe to compete enthusiastically and professionally in a range of sports. Over 55 countries flew into the shores of the Gold Coast in Queensland to unite for one week of competition and community, to highlight to the world the fulfillment our transplants enable us to feel and the importance of donating organs.
During the week I competed in running and cycling events, taking home a bronze and three gold medals. However all the medals in the world can’t compare to the feeling of being able to finish a race and finish it well. To watch double lung and heart recipients sprint over the finish line, or lung recipients swim 100m just as quickly as any athlete or to watch heart recipients cycle 20km just as fast and just as well as any normal healthy person, to watch children who have received donated livers and pancreases compete in athletics, long distance running and swimming.
Being there meant making friends and living in community with people who also came from a world so different to the one we know now, to share the same stories and experiences. The Transplant Games meant representing our countries and demonstrating our appreciation for the donation of life. All of us who competed on the Gold Coast are here today thanks to the incomprehensible gift and choice of a family. To be at the Transplant Games is to be alive.
As tactless as this may sound when you die you could potentially save ten lives and restore sight to two people. You could equip another twelve people to compete in the Transplant Games, demonstrating to the world the miracle and life of transplantation. You would bring a whole group of people into the freedom you live now. Write it down, tell your family, photo copy this article and give it your family and friends - however you do it spread the word. People like me are alive because of transplantation.
And for every one of the 2000 competitors at the World Transplant Games – including myself – meant the gut wrenching sacrifice of a family some where out in the world. All I and every transplant recipient can do is thank you. Thank you to every person out there who has made the selfless and truly painful decision to allow your son, daughter, brother, sister, father or mother to pass on their organs that people like me can live and compete with all the health and energy in the world - in every event that comes my way. Thank you for allowing your world to collide with my world. Mum, thank you for giving up a huge apart of your life that I can experience and live mine abundantly. Thank you for freeing me from the tangles of disease. Every day, every medal belongs to you.