Organ Harvest and the Power of Grandmothers

Did you hear the one about the guy who gets injured on an ATV and is declared brain dead?

“OKLAHOMA CITY - Four months after he was declared brain dead and doctors were about to remove his organs for transplant, Zach Dunlap says he feels ‘pretty good.’ …

As family members were paying their last respects, he moved his foot and hand. He reacted to a pocketknife scraped across his foot and to pressure applied under a fingernail. After 48 days in the hospital, he was allowed to return home, where he continues to work on his recovery.”

His father saw the brain scan, saw that there was no sign of life, no sign of blood flow.

“Dunlap said one thing he does remember is hearing the doctors pronounce him dead.”

Here’s a link to the full story.http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20080324/ap_on_fe_st/not_dead If the link doesn’t work, look it up - Dunlap, Oklahoma City. They covered it on NBC “Today”.

Do you realize what this means?

My friend Connie can’t imagine the horror of patients who have been alive and unable to speak during harvesting. She says this whole thing gives her second thoughts about being an organ donor.

And I can imagine the newfound horror and guilt of anyone who ever gave doctors permission to harvest and/or pull the plug. Up until today, I would have trusted that the doctors were right. So much for “technology doesn’t lie.”

Which brings me to another thought.

My mother still has issues with my Gram DESPITE the fact that she’s dead. Gram continues to communicate with me from the other side and my mother is JEALOUS.

Again.

Holy crap. She came out and warned me that Gram is a “master manipulator.” Apparently family shit DOES never end.

So I’ve been thinking. Some say real love skips a generation. Many quietly accept that grandmothers are better mothers than mothers. For many of us, grandmothers are the only unconditional love we get in our lives. And when we meet each other, us Grandma-raised kids tend to form an instant bond.

Then it occurred to me that my Finnish Great Grandmother spoke very little English. Was my mother a little less warm because she didn’t have her own grandmother to really TALK to? Discuss things with? Be a favorite of? Unconditionally loved by?

It was an “aha” moment.

I wonder what studies have been done in this regard. And I wonder how much having a doting grandmother changes who we become.