Give the gift of life
April is National Donate Life Month, raising awareness to those waiting for a life-saving organ donation and encouraging individuals to sign-up to become a life-saver.
In 1985, Tony Fulginiti’s kidneys began to deteriorate and die. Seven years later, on Christmas Eve, the doctors told him he would be dead by the following Christmas if he did not receive a new kidney. On Feb. 20, 1992, Fulginiti’s sister, Geri Baiocchi, donated her organ to save her brother’s life.
“I didn’t think twice, because I didn’t want him to die. It was easy for me,” Baiocchi said.
Prior to the surgery, Fulginiti’s health had a dramatic decline. Baiocchi described her brother the night before the procedure as the most dramatic moment she had to endure during the process.
“The most dramatic thing for me wasn’t when he told us he was sick, it wasn’t the testing or the initial test, it was the night before the surgery,” Baiocchi said. “He was yellow, he couldn’t breathe, and he couldn’t walk. I just wanted it to be done.”
Fulginiti said he became hypotensive during the surgery and began to die.
“I started to go down the tunnel with the light at the end,” Fulginiti said. “I knew if I did that I’d die, so I turned around in the tunnel and that’s when they said I threw up into the mask.”
Fulginiti survived the surgery, however the kidney did not begin working right away. He spent 17 days in the hospital, watching transplant patients come and go in the bed beside him while he waited for the good news that his body accepted the foreign kidney.
“People would come and go next to me, get transplant, pee, leave; get transplant, pee, leave,” Fulginiti said. “When they sent me home, my new kidney didn’t work for three more weeks after that.”
Finally, the kidney began to work. Fulginiti said the new organ had been traumatized and shocked during the surgery, almost having died in the middle of the operation. Fulginiti has now been on numerous medications since the surgery, such as Prednisone, which are required to keep the kidney alive and functioning. However, because of this, he developed skin cancer over time.
“You can’t fight these diseases after a transplant surgery because you don’t have a wholesome immune system,” Fulginiti said.
Baiocchi also developed health complications. She was recently diagnosed with stage three Secondary Focal Segmental Glomerulosclerosis, a type of kidney disease, with 17 percent of her only kidney left turned into scar tissue.
“You can’t worry if you’re going to get something,” Baiocchi said. “If you are going to get something, you will. I’m going to enjoy what I have. You need to have a good mindset.”
In September 1992, a student whose mother had undergone an unsuccessful kidney transplant approached Fulginiti, a communications professor at Rowan College at Gloucester County, known then as Glassboro State College, eager to do something to help others and raise awareness about organ donation. This inspired what is now Organ Donor Day, an annual event held by the Rowan Public Relations Student Society of America, a chapter Fulginiti founded.
Every April for National Donate Life Month, the PRSSA holds the eight-hour event, from 10 a.m. to 6 p.m., featuring informational tables, speakers, games, live music and more, in the student center patio on the RCGC campus in Glassboro. The purpose is to raise awareness for organ donation and to encourage peers to sign up as organ donors.
“It’s the smallest thing a person can do for the biggest amount of change,” said RCGC senior Katarina DeFelice, PRSSA president and co-chair of the event. “I can go live the rest of my life, but when that day comes, I can possibly save not just one life, but up to eight lives.”
April 6 will be the event’s 23rd year educating fellow teachers, staff, students and community members about organ donation opportunities. DeFelice said their goal is to have at least 115 people sign up to be an organ donor and to raise $500 for Donate Life Delaware.
According to DeFelice, a popular concern in regard to signing up to become an organ donor is individuals believe doctors and nurses might let them die because they want to take their organs. According to CEO and President of the Gift of Life Donor Program Howard Nathan, the professionals at the hospital more often than not do not get your wallet to check if you are even registered to be a donor, and even then, the only people who have access to the transplant registry are those at Gift of Life.
The Gift of Life Donor Program is the region’s organ and tissue transplant network, established in 1974. Since then, the program has coordinated more than 42,000 organ transplants and an estimated 600,000 tissue transplants. Last year, the non-profit broke the U.S. record for organ donation, coordinating organ donations from 540 donors, resulting in 1,412 organs transplanted. In December, the organization also broke the national monthly record with 62 donors and 167 organs transplanted. According to a statement by Gift of Life, “the annual donation rate equates to 49 organ donors-per-million-population, ranking it among the highest in the world.”
According to the data department, statistics show there are 321 Gloucester County residents awaiting a life-saving organ transplant at a transplant center in Gift of Life’s service area. There are 277 patients looking for a kidney, 11 waiting for a kidney-pancreas, 18 waiting for a liver, 12 anticipating lungs and three in need of a heart.
According to Nathan, less than 2 percent of all people who are deceased are suitable to be a donor. This is because you cannot be clinically and legally declared deceased unless the brain has complete loss of function. If the heart stops, the organs will die with you, and are therefore unable to be eligible for donation. In this case, an individual would only be able to donate tissue, such as corneas, bones, skin and ligaments, up to 24 hours from passing away, reaching as much as 75 lives in need of a donation. If an individual is declared brain dead, he or she is able to donate their organs, such as the kidney, heart, liver, lungs, pancreas and intestines, saving up to eight lives.
Typically, Nathan said, the majority of donors each year are deceased. Last year, he explained, there were 9,979 deceased donors in the United States, resulting in approximately 27,000 transplants. Because living donors are only able to donate one organ, there were fewer transplants performed from the 5,989 living donors who gave a piece of themselves to another in need. Donors range from newborns up to 85 years old. According to the Gift of Life statistics, in 2016, there were 270 deceased donors from New Jersey and 233 living donors, totaling 503 donors, an increase from 448 in 2015.
According to Nathan, the success rate of kidney transplants in the first year is approximately 95 percent from living donors, and about 93 percent for deceased donors.
Fulginiti recommends to those in similar situations as he found himself in 25 years ago to participate in organ donor programs and encourage people to sign up as organ donors.
“The more people that sign up, the more chance you can be picked to get that organ that you need. You have to stay in there, but don’t stay idle. Don’t just wait for a kidney; get other people involved by signing organ cards,” Fulginiti said. “People die every day waiting for organs. How many of those were buried or burned?”
According to Gift of Life, about 22 people die every day in the U.S. waiting for an organ transplant. To register as an organ donor, or for more information on what it means to be an organ donor, visit www.donors1.org.
“You have two choices when you die: you can give your organs to someone to live, or you can feed them to the worms,” Fulginiti said. “Consider who you are not helping. If you deprive someone of life, you die guilty. Sign the card and live in peace.”
