Organ donor list gets big liftREGISTRY REBOUNDS AS STATE CHANGES SIGN-UP PROCEDURES
By April Lynch, San Jose Mercury News, Calif.
Dec. 21--Keeping vigil at a Palo Alto hospital, the family and friends of a Bay Area man in urgent need of a lung transplant are waiting to see whether California's improved organ donor registry system just might offer him a new lease on life.
Charlie Stockley, a 38-year-old sound designer at Redwood City-based Electronic Arts, is on life support at Stanford University Medical Center. Stockley lives with a lung-damaging genetic condition, and his health failed unexpectedly earlier this month.
Stockley is at the top of a national transplant list. But now it might be up to another list -- California's newly strengthened organ donor registry -- whether Stockley's life can be saved.
Recent changes in California's system for registering organ donors have added more than half a million names to donor rolls in less than six months. About 5,000 people a day are now signing up as potential organ donors, state officials said, compared with about 5,000 a week just a few months ago.
"It's making a dramatic difference," said David Heneghan, spokesman for the California Donor Transplant Network.
The boost comes after the state replaced its old method of signaling interest in organ donation. The Department of Motor Vehicles used to offer drivers an organ donor card and pink organ donor dot to stick on their driver's license. Both were easy to lose. Neither were legally binding. The DMV didn't track who filled out the card or used the dot.
As a clearer alternative, organ donation groups started the Donate Life California registry in 2005. The non-profit, state-authorized registry requires potential organ donors to sign up online.
On its own, the registry enrolled about 280,000 participants -- just more than 1 percent of the state's 23 million drivers. Then the DMV dropped the dot this summer, switching to a box that potential organ donors check with they renew or apply for a driver's license. Checking that box enrolls a person in the Donate Life registry.
As a result, more than 865,000 people are now enrolled, DMV spokesman Mike Miller said. Organ donation groups estimate that if people keep signing up at current rates, about 40 percent of the state's drivers eventually will be registered.
For people waiting for organ transplants, every new donor offers a little more hope. More than 18,000 Californians, including more than 8,000 in Northern California, are on a national transplant waiting list.
Just a few months ago, Stockley had no idea he'd be at the top of that list. He was born with cystic fibrosis, a genetic illness that can cause severe lung damage. But he'd been doing well, planning his wedding this spring, when his condition suddenly deteriorated.
A lifesaving lung donation could come from anywhere -- another part of the country, or a person not on the California registry whose family allows organ donation after an unexpected death. But the state's stronger registry is a source of hope.
Stockley's friends and relatives divide their time between yearning for good news and encouraging others to sign up on the registry. No one can know, they said, when a loved one might need aid from a generous donor.
"We're waiting to see if someone's loss can give Charlie life, so that their family can take some comfort in knowing that the help went to an amazingly wonderful person," said family friend Renee Gonsalves. "You don't realize how much of a gift of life donation is until you are sitting, waiting in the hospital."
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IF YOU'RE INTERESTED
Find more information on registering as an organ donor at www. donatelifecalifornia.org. To see updates on Charlie Stockley's condition, go to
www.charliestockley.com.
Contact April Lynch at alynch@mercurynews.com or (408) 920-5539.
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