“I hate that someone has to die so I can live.”
My sister told me this more than once as her liver deteriorated and began killing her. She spent years preparing for the possibility of a transplant, but she struggled with the moral weight of it.
Despite doing everything she could, autoimmune disease continued to attack her. She was admitted to the Piedmont Transplant Institute in Atlanta, Georgia, and put on a “fast track” program.
As her liver failed, ammonia accumulated in her brain and she became nonresponsive. The situation became urgent. My sister needed a match within 48 hours.
A few states away, another family was experiencing unimaginable grief as they said their goodbyes. Their loved one’s liver became my sister’s lifeline — a gift.
My sister’s transplant made clear a reality I never considered. Even though most Americans say they support organ donation, far fewer register, creating a gap that shapes outcomes for patients nationwide.
A growing gap between patients and donors
Currently, there are over 122,000 patients on the national transplant waiting list, far outpacing available donors.
In Utah, DonorConnect is working to shrink that gap.
Brady Dransfield, DonorConnect’s manager of public education, said long-standing misconceptions keep people from registering. He and his team say the same rumors come up everywhere.
“They think if you’re a donor, then the doctors won’t try as hard to save your life,” he said.
Stories behind organ donation
As a kidney recipient himself, Dransfield understands the realities of organ donation firsthand. He received a kidney from his father in 1994, and said at the time, he didn’t realize how much went into it.
“I’ve been very lucky and blessed to have made it this long,” he said. “I still have his kidney. The numbers aren’t the best, but I’m still surviving.”
He will need another kidney and says the decision feels a lot heavier now.
“I think, ‘I don’t want to take from my wife, I don’t want to take from my kids,’ I can’t put them in that situation,” he said. “What if they need a transplant?”
Dransfield, whose father was a living donor, acknowledged that receiving from someone who has died can bring another layer of emotions.
“There’s that survivor’s guilt; you have this family that’s lost a loved one,” he said. “However, I’m carrying part of their life within me, and that saved my life.”
Dransfield said the most important thing people can do is let their final wishes be known.
“We’ve had situations where people pass away, and they haven’t told anybody in their family that they want to be an organ donor,” he said. “It’s very difficult when you’re in a time of stress and emotions are high — It’s not a fun time to be talking about that.”
For donor families, these decisions are often made in real-time. Sammy Facer, an aftercare coordinator with DonorConnect, faced that moment when her father, Deseret News sports journalist Dirk Facer, died unexpectedly while waiting for a kidney transplant in 2023.
“There is this definitive break between someone who is not going to survive before you are approached for donation,” she said. “My dad already wasn’t going to survive before our family was even talked to.”
She learned late in the afternoon that her father wouldn’t survive, and only a few hours later the family was asked about organ donation.
“I pretty much interrupted the conversation and immediately said yes,” she said. “I just knew how badly my dad wanted that kidney.”
Facer said her dad prepared for months to get on the national transplant waiting list. She keeps a picture taken the day he found out he would finally be listed — his head in his hands, overcome with emotion.
“There’s this hope for feeling better and having this new chance of life,” she said. “And also, this sadness of you’re going to have to have a kidney transplant and this sadness of there’s a possibility that somebody is going to lose a loved one for you to receive this transplant.”
Facer said she thought about that moment when DonorConnect approached her family.
Finding meaning in loss
Her father’s liver was recovered and went to a Utah woman. Facer’s family later exchanged letters with the recipient through DonorConnect’s aftercare program. Although the woman died last summer, her family wrote that they were grateful to the family who gave their mother two extra years.
“I just think about that a lot,” she said. “If I had two more years with my dad, that would mean the world to me.”
According to Facer, DonorConnect’s support lasted long after her father’s death with phone calls, donor-family groups and honoring loved ones with the Celebration of Life Monument.
“Just having somebody that’s there and willing to help you through grief,” she said. “Grief is just so complicated … it just never ends.”
Facer said that support made a lasting impact.
“If we had said no to organ donation, we would have said goodbye to my dad that day and never heard from anybody,” she said. “Instead, we had people checking in on us and ways to honor and remember him for years.”
The experience led Facer to seek a job with DonorConnect so she could help families like hers.
When my sister said, “I hate that someone has to die so I can live,” my heart broke as I recognized the weight she was carrying.
Now, I have started to see that weight differently and hope to share this with my sister soon.
While organ donation cannot heal the grief families feel, it can give it meaning and purpose.
Because someone chose “yes” to organ donation, my sister is alive. She can continue in her much-needed roles as mom, wife, grandma, daughter and sister.
Utah residents can learn more by visiting DonorConnect’s website or register as organ donors when renewing their driver’s licenses.