Organ Donor
I was just filling out that card the Ontario government includes with the application to renew your licensee plate1. The card has two options
- Any needed organs or tissue
- Only the following organs and/or tissue (specify)
The second option also provides a blank space where you can be really specific about your preferred choice of organ and tissue you’d like to donate. Naturally, I picked the first. In fact, I think I always pick the first option but I somehow lost my previous card from a while ago, which is why I was filling it out now. No idea what happened to the original actually, but I digress…
So anyway, while I’m filling out the card I started thinking, out of the blue as the human mind is want, “Holy crap, do they take your whole eyeball? I mean the whole thing?!”
Weird eh? I mean, it’s interesting how vanity comes into play in a situation where I, being dead, probably won’t really care whether I have two eyes or not. And I couldn’t for the life of me tell you why “eyeballs” popped into my head either. Anyway, I found a helpful FAQ and it turns out they’re pretty discreet about these things:
“These procedures do not cause a significant delay in funeral arrangements and nor do they interfere with an open casket viewing for the donor”
They also seem more interested in corneas than the whole thing anyway, so I’m sticking with “any needed organs or tissue” and feeling pretty good about it2. There’s also a nice section on Cultural and Religious Perspectives on Donation which I recommend reading which I found kind of interesting as well.
1 I suspect some of you may not know what I’m talking about, because you are not Canadian and don’t live in the province of Ontario. In fact, as far as I can tell by my stats (Thank you Google Analytics!), a majority of you are in fact American. It’s an organ donor card from the Trillion Gift of Life Network the Ontario Organ and Tissue Donation Agency. I suspect they have something similar where you live as well.
2 As another brief aside, I also think that open caskets are a bit gruesome, always have, but I understand why some people choose it.
