The end is near

Friday Oct 5th is this blogs birthday (1 year old now). It was also the day 3,000 hits were recorded. Kind of neat, I suppose.

But this will also probably be the blogs last entry. My final post.

This blog was to be about my experience with live liver organ donation. I wanted to let others know what it was like to donate an organ. It was started because the local hospital, where the transplant was to take place, wouldn't allow this areas largest newspaper to do a story about me and my donation experience. I wanted to get the word out in case I wasn't able to donate my liver. Which was what happened.

I also used ambiguous, yet obvious pseudonyms for the characters in and around me. Because of this blog, I received a pretty large amount of flack from people that didn't like what I was writing about. All of which can be found here, on the blog.

Because of that, I chose to stop putting in personal accounts and observances of the characters so I could comply with those few that were unhappy. And, because of that, the only thing left was to regurgitate information that was already available to anyone that can perform a Google search. I can't do that anymore. If it's not personal, it's not what I want to do. The blog has become old, stale and stagnant.

I want to thank most of you for stopping by every so often and supporting me over the last year when there was real honest content on the blog. It was a wonderful ride.....

I end with today's numbers:

Waiting list candidates as of today 11:09am
All	97,504

http://www.optn.org/data/

Got liver?

Carl did, and here is his blog.
http://carlanddawn.blogspot.com

News from around the world

Well, actually from one other country. Here is a small article on Yahoo News, from Hong Kong about a living donor. Click here. Thanks to Josh for finding it.

There is always hope

On Nightline (ABC News) there was a story about a liver transplant.

Curent numbers

Waiting list candidates as of today 9:31am 9/11/07
97,216
http://www.optn.org/data

332 people have been added to the waiting list in 23 days.

So cool

http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,294607,00.html
FoxNews.com reported that an 8 month old boy received a FIVE organ transplant of the gastrointestinal tract. The organs did come from a single donor.

A side note

One of the web sites I visit frequently had this article.
http://www.sportsshooter.com/news/1814
It is about a photographer that documented the last days of a womans life very close and "inside". He talks about being inside versus outside regarding the subject.

When I asked a photographer from a local paper to document my journey as a liver donor, it was this access I was trying to provide. Not many times do they get that kind of an opportunity.

Current numbers

Waiting list candidates 96,884 as of today 5:15pm
Data from OPTN.org

It's amazing how fast the numbers are rising. We will have 100,000 people waiting for an organ probably in less than a year (by my estimate nothing to substantiate those numbers). I can only assume that the number of people that die every day will rise accordingly. Right now, I believe that number is about 17 people die every day waiting for an organ.

CORE has updated is Facts and Statistics page. It's an interesting read.

Concerning issues

Apparently I have pushed someones buttons. I got this anonymous comment:
Ok, after reading the latest on your website, I really must say that you have your self up on a high pedestal, and it is not only Brad and I that think you are truly an ass.

That being said, the only reason we read it, is so we can see how much you think of your self and see how big your head has gotten for the day.

I emailed the above this question:
Would you be willing to share exactly what has gotten so many people on a tear? (that's TEAR as in RIP, not tear as in crying).

Then got this anonymous comment:
You are an ass.

Never did get a response to my question. So, apparently my whole blog has been all about me. Well, yes, IT IS MY BLOG. From my point of view and my life. I guess it will be a bit biased. I still try to be pretty fair in my representation of the facts of life and the goings on.

So, when someone reads my blog only to see how big my head has gotten and it makes them so upset. Stop reading. Pretty simple.