Organ Donation: You Decide Where Your Organs Go

In Ontario, someone on a waiting list for a vital organ dies every 72 hours. A tragic figure, especially when one organ donor can save up to eight lives and enhance up to 75 more. Right now, there are more than 1,500 desperate individuals on waiting lists in Ontario. These are mothers, fathers, brothers and sisters, and maybe, you. And guess what? There aren’t nearly enough donors.

When someone requires an organ transplant for a second chance at life, a whirlwind of medical tests and procedures sends families on an emotional roller coaster ride of despair and often enough, tragedy. At the age of 19, Eddie Sabat was diagnosed with hypertrophic cardiomyopathy, a condition where the muscle of the heart thickens and enlarges, making it difficult for the heart to pump blood. Sabat desperately needed a heart transplant to live a life he barely started. “There’s anger, frustration, nervousness. But when Read more

Ryan’s Hope: Living On in the Lives of Others

The day started out normally enough. It was May 1, 1997. Ryan was upstairs preparing to leave for school, while his six-year-old sister, Jamie, waited for him at the front door. Suddenly, Ryan started to tell us about Albert Einstein with such enthusiasm and excitement; it was as if a light had gone off in his head. He said, “E=mc2 – I understand what Einstein was saying: the theory of relativity. I understand now!”

I said, “That’s wonderful,” but thought, how odd. It wasn’t his thinking about Einstein – Ryan was so intelligent – but rather, the timing that seemed peculiar.

At the age of 10, Ryan loved knowledge and seemed to have an abundance of it, far beyond his years. The possibilities of the universe were boundless to him. Read more