Organ Donation

[FutureCarmeliteClaire]

No wonder I'd never heard of it in this context before. Anyway, I was told by an organ donation campaigner 5 or so years ago that post-mortem donations are the responsibility of your next-of-kin, and that's the bottom line, and it's one's own responsbility to communicate one's wishes to that person beforehand, so that they know. (The little insignia on your driver's license, for instance, according to the woman, was just a "clue" for them.) And even so, it's fully within their right to disregard them, no matter the age of the deceased. That may have changed in the meantime, or it could have been wrong, I guess you can defer to the posters above who probably know better than me.

You can give a kidney while living, and that's mainly what I was wondering about. It had just dawned on me that lung donation post mortem probably won't be an option for me.

You can donate a lobe of your lung without a significant change in quality of life, if the donor is healthy.

I just realized that after the pulmonary embolism, I'll probably need all parts of my lungs... ;)

[r2Dtoo]

Organs are gross.  I would rather people donate their money to me instead.