Six years ago, Tom Jasinski of Amherst felt like he was on top of the world. He had just married the woman of his dreams and remained very close to his children. But his honeymoon with his wife quickly took a turn for the worst when Jasinski was diagnosed with life threatening, end-stage renal failure.
“Instead of enjoying my time as a newlywed, my entire life seemed to be centered around preparing for, enduring, or recovering from my dialysis sessions, which in my opinion, are akin to modern day bloodletting. My fellow patients, mostly elderly, from a nearby nursing home, seemed lost, scared and wilting away. Some had lost faith, some passed away and others were waiting to pass away. Some told me not to get my hopes up, that if I was lucky enough to get a transplant, they can and do fail and I would likely end up right back where I started. But somehow I knew with certainty that I would not spend my life in a dialysis clinic,” said Jasinski.
While Jasinski never lost faith that he would eventually receive a donor, the mere statistic that finding a donor that matched his rare blood type (B) could take up to 10 years in New York State was startling to him. He and his wife, Ginny, decided it was time for them to find a way to help spread awareness of the need for organ donors. They started One8Fifty, a non-profit grassroots organization with a mission that lets the community know that one person can provide eight people with lifesaving organs and greatly impact at least fifty others through tissue donation.
“Through research and my illness, I found that New York State had a tremendous need for organ transplant, but was lacking in this point of time. We are last among the 50 states registered to be donors,” said Jasinski. “What this basically means is that people are dying because there’s not enough people in the system to facilitate the need for life-saving organ transplants.”
So why are so many people hesitant to donate? According to Jasinski, the perception of becoming a transplant donor are all wrong.
“There are optics that need to be associated with transplant. For instance, my wife was a swimming coach to a young lady who was in elementary school and she was a double lung transplant recipient. She’s got to the other side, she has her masters degree, she’s married, she wrote a book, bought a house and now she’s adopting a child. These are the optics that need to be associated with transplant.”
Jasinski was not only a kidney transplant recipient, he was also a pancreas transplant recipient, which cured his diabetes. He says he is so very grateful for his good fortune and hopes people will listen to his story and make a decision for themselves on whether to become an organ donor or not.
“Although I’m not a particularly religious person, I know I have been very fortunate. I am so very grateful for the selfless people who made it possible for me to be alive today. I am forever indebted to Paul, whose selflessness saved my life, and to the young man whose life was cut short, but whose family was able, despite their grief, to extend another’s life through the donation of his pancreas,” said Jasinski.
For more information on One8Fifty, visit www.one8fifty.org You may also visit www.registerme.org/Campaign/one8fifty to easily register to become an organ donor.
