Childless Parents Newsletter, Autumn 2020

Newsletter for Childless Parents | www.tcf.org.uk 6 I don’t know when we first talked about it. I think it was one of those things that was just known and there. I remember talking to my Mum about organ donation and being a blood donor when I found out she was one. I always said I wanted to be a donor if anything happened to me and I knew that’s what my Mum wanted too. When it came to my son it was something we talked about in passing when he was growing up. The adverts would come on the television and it reminded me to tell him that’s what I wanted. Every now and then the conversation would come around to it and I would think “what’s the fuss, of course it’s what I want to do” I thought it was an obvious choice that if you can help someone in death you do it. I don’t remember Oliver ever saying whether he wanted to be a donor but he never said he didn’t want to be one. Ten months after he turned 18 he passed his driving test, and applied for his licence. After sending off the form he said “Oh by the way Mum, I ticked the box to say I’d be a donor”, I just replied saying “Good on you” That was it. The conversation was done. I knew what he wanted and he had made it official. Little did I know the that day would come and I’d need to know. When we were at the hospital after Oliver’s accident, the doctors sat me down and said that there was a specialist nurse coming to see me. I said “you mean organ donation don’t you”. It didn’t quite add up. Why would they be talking organ donation when he was just unconscious. They nodded, and that they had already looked into his records and seen that he wanted to be a donor. I said I knew that is what he wanted and agreed to it. The nurse came to see me, and by about 4.30am things were being put in place. They thought it would be about lunch time, so I sat and held his hand watching the machines making him breathe. It didn’t feel real. The nurses were amazing, coming in and checking him, talking to him, cleaning him up and looking after him. Lunch time came and went, and I just kept checking the clock, watching the minutes tick by. Every now and again it would all get too much and I kept saying they couldn’t have him, I wanted to take him home, but the specialist nurse and the family I had with me calmed me down and I was back knowing it was what he wanted and was the right thing to do. Eventually it was 7pm when they took Oliver down to theatre. I didn’t want to leave him; I knew that as soon as I left the hospital he would be gone. The specialist nurse rang me at about 10.30 and told me it was all done, and that she had cleaned him up and brushed his hair. That was so important to me. Knowing someone was with him. Organ Donation and my Oliver Oliver