Alice has just celebrated her 16th birthday when the tragic accident occurs which mows down her in her youth. Alice, this is my love. My life. My oldest daughter. She is preparing a CAP as a groom in a stud farm.
The horse is his passion. She is happy and fulfilled. On that fatal day, the young horse she returns to the stable on foot stumbles and falls. While getting up with a thrust, he gives her a blow with his hoof in the temple. The colossal damage caused to his brain is irremediable. She died after five days of coma in neurosurgical resuscitation.
From the first night, the question of the donation arises, while we wait, devastated, her father and I, alone in a small room, 20 meters from our sleeping Alice. I need to know that if her life does not extend, it will be someone else’s, thanks to her. So, on our uncomfortable chairs, in the cold, in fatigue, while our love of a little girl is still breathing, we definitively decide this question: if, in an hour, a day, a week, we are told that Alice is in a state of brain death, their organs will be donated. Here. We don’t talk about it any more, we talk about it for a minute. However, this subject had never been discussed before.
Alice could only stay vegetative
The medical staff take great care of her, but I have the horrible feeling that life is slowly leaving her, that she is struggling, but that it will not last long. “Is there a micro chance that Alice is waking up?” “No, none. I have never seen a patient come back from this state” replied the neurologist.
Alice could only remain vegetative. His life slowly died out. When she presented signs of brain death, which means that the brain is no longer supplied with water and no longer has any electrical activity, tests were carried out to prove it, before legally authorizing organ donation. : two electroencephalograms at least 4 hours apart, interpreted by different doctors, as well as an “apnea test”. The latter consists of unplugging the artificial respirator for a sufficiently long time, in order to observe whether the brain regains control of breathing.
Once the encephalic death certificate has been established, the patient becomes a donor. We are told that at any time we can go back. Until the last minute. That we don’t have to give everything, that we can limit ourselves to one or two organs. We can decide which ones.
Then we are told that some of Alice’s organs can be removed: the heart, lungs, kidneys, liver, pancreas and small intestine.
Alice has a sports body, healthy organs
In my mind, everything is clear. Our decision is the right one. The luck that the receivers are going to have is that Alice is young, athletic, she has a champion’s body, healthy organs. She never drank, never smoked. She ate no sugar.
The samples last 6 hours. When at 10pm we return to the hospital, the donation coordinator greets us with: “Everything went well.” So I stop crying, I finally smile. I understand that the sampling teams left with organs and that, somewhere, at the start of the night, patients may already be anesthetized, ready to be operated on to receive this gift of life.
6 organs were collected out of 7 samples. I realize that after the death of my child, six other families see the unspeakable grief of the loss of a loved one fade away. Children being a priority to receive a transplant, I hope that, among them, there is at least one.
Absolute anonymity, both donor and recipient, is essential for me. I don’t need to know who the recipients of my daughter’s organs are, but more importantly, I don’t want them to know who she was or who we are. Because I have the full conviction that they are indebted for nothing, and knowing that they have regained better health is enough for me. They owe Alice nothing, and at least not her life. She had already passed away when they received this miraculous transplant. They owe their survival only to them. To their strength. To their love of life. I wish them to be well for as long as possible.
We have the right to know if the transplant worked, so I inquired about them at the beginning. As time goes by, I take less. It’s their life.
Organ donation does not make death less painful
Organ donation doesn’t make death less painful, my mom’s heart is broken, but donation doesn’t add to grief either. It takes nothing more than what life has already taken from us. The donation gave some semblance of meaning to my child’s death and made it less unfair.
6 people are alive because we said “yes” to the donation. Life remains the strongest. But I don’t have the feeling that Alice lives through 6 others. 6 others got a boost, 6 others very lucky because there are many on the list of applicants. The only thing to remember is that Alice was a singular, funny, surprising, fabulous, generous young girl. His death was worth 6 lives. When leaving her, before she left for the OR for the samples, I promised to wake me up every morning with a fond memory of her. There are so many of them that I have them until the end of my life.
To read : Alice’s gift, Florence Bouté (City éditions)
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