It’s been quite a week for T Sandeman-Charles. “It happened on Wednesday morning when my husband, Roy, brought me my iPad in bed. I check my Save5 campaign site every morning to see if there have been any more people signing up overnight,” says T (short for Teresa).
She couldn’t believe what she saw. T was just nine people short of her goal to get 10,000 signatures to the organ donor register. “I suddenly felt so nervous. Could we really do this?”
Another email confirming a registration popped up. And another. Then the all-important email that confirmed T had reached her target pinged in.
“I was hit by such a roller coaster of emotions, it surprised me. We’d actually done it. I felt elated and just burst into tears,” says T.
I can only imagine the force of emotion T felt. I haven’t spoken to T for a few months but I’ve heard she’s not in great shape. You see, T, who is only 53, has two lung diseases that will kill her unless she gets a lung transplant. And fast.
After a matter of minutes T’s upbeat and sing-song tone is reduced to raspy words as she struggles to speak and breathe.
“I’m on oxygen 24 hours a day now and get around mostly in my wheelchair in the house. Living is hard. It’s truly amazing how much effort is required to do the most basic tasks,” she says, trailing off a little at the end.
I first met T in April of this year, when the sun shone into the conservatory at her Arkesden home, near Saffron Walden, and she beamed and talked about her Save5 campaign, not quite effortlessly, but animatedly. In a matter of months T has become much more poorly.
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"You have the power to SAVE lives."
To register as a donor in California:
www.donateLIFEcalifornia.org | www.doneVIDAcalifornia.org
Outside California:
www.organdonor.gov | www.donatelife.
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