BROOKLINE, Mass., April 15, 2009
Face Donor's Wife Has No Regrets
Request Was Unexpected, But Family Of Donor Agreed It Was The "Right Thing To Do"
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This April 9, 2009 photo, supplied by Brigham and Women's Hospital , shows surgery resident Evan Matros, left, surgeons Elof Eriksson and Bohdan Pomahac, second from right, and Julian Pribaz, right, performing the nation's second partial face transplant at Brigham and Women's Hospital in Boston on April 9, 2009. (AP/J. Kiely Jr., BWH-Lightchaser)
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Play CBS Video Video Face Transplant Miracle "Warning: Graphic Content" Shot in the face 5 years ago, Connie Culp was publicly ridiculed for her disfigurements until, as Michelle Miller reports, she received an experimental transplant surgery.
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Interactive Organ Transplants Find a donor group in your state and learn more about the history - and amazing future - of organ transplants.
Susan Whitman told The Boston Globe for a story in Wednesday's editions that she was surprised, however, when organ bank officials asked if she would approve of the donation of Joseph Helfgot's face.
Whitman and their four children held a conference call and quickly agreed it was the "right thing to do."
"You wish, on so many levels, that you don't have to make this decision, but how can you deny someone else a chance at [a normal] life?" Whitman told the Globe.
Helfgot, 60, learned to appreciate the value of life from his Holocaust survivor parents, friends and family said.
"It's easy to sign up and say you are an organ donor," Whitman said. "It's another to have your family understand and facilitate that. It's painful and it takes strength and a will to do it."
Helfgot never woke up after his April 5 heart transplant and the face operation took place on April 9, the day before Helfgot's funeral.
"He would be happy to know he went out with a bang," she said.
The recipient's identity hasn't been released, but Whitman said she would one day like to meet the man who received her husband's nose, roof of his mouth, upper lip, facial skin, muscles and nerves. Doctors have said the recipient will not look like the donor because his bone structure is different.
Helfgot grew up in New York City's Lower East Side and went on to become a sociology professor at Boston University by age 23. He later founded MarketCast, one of Hollywood's leading research companies.
Whitman said she went public with her story because she hoped to inspire others to become organ donors.
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My brother in law had told us he didn't want to be a donor and it was very hard on us trying to deal with all the calls for donations when he died from an accidental fall.
Then my young nephew who had been disabled from grandmal seizures all his life had told us he wanted every part of his body that could be used to help someone living and what couldn't be used then to be given to Baylor in Houston for research. He suddenly died from an undetected hereditary heart problem. Some of his skin went to the burn hospital for burn victims transplants. Some bone for needed bone grafts, and every vital organ went to help someone except his heart of course . There was no confusion there because he had told the family what he wanted.
So my family knows the feelings from both sides. And we have talked among ourselves so that we all are pretty well informed about what the other family members want in case of their death.
Some families find it hard to talk about anything like that so it really helps for a family member who wants to be a donor to let his family know what he wants and no one should be made to feel bad if they don't want to donate .
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I have a living will AND a durable power of attorney for health care, but neither of them can legally determine the disposal of my organs after I die in the state I live in. In this state, organ donation is exclusively determined by the next of kin. There is no kind of paperwork that circumvents the wishes of the next of kin here.
Susan, unfortunately, cases do exist. Check out the case of Gregory Jacobs, a young vibrant teenager who died after a snowboarding accident: http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2009/03/16/earlyshow/health/main4868744.shtml
I am signed up as an organ donor myself. BUT I am not naiive enough to think that there are not abuses in the system and that there aren't some corrupt folks out there that will see opportunity and take advantage.
Posted by raflin1 at 6:54 PM : Apr 15, 2009
Amen raflin1, Amen!
Posted by SusanStoHelit at 4:40 PM : Apr 15, 2009
NO!!! Resistance is futile!!
I wonder why???? being a donor might be a death warrant..
It's illegal for the doctor caring for you to be involved in any way in the organ donation - cannot be any part of it - so they've got no motivation beyond caring for you, until such a point where care is futile.
I sincerely hope that someone comes up with a way for a person to insure their own wishes will be carried out when those wishes conflict with the wishes of the next of kin. Otherwise, my organs will be buried with me...which is horrifying to me if they can be used to save someone else's life!
- by antoniof123 April 15, 2009 3:28 PM EDT
- I have sat my family down and explained to them that I am an organ doner then my daughter decided to do the same as well as my wife. That makes it so much easier to do and that way everyone in the family knows your wishes.
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