5 months have passed….

We recently received a letter telling us that Emily’s corneas have been given to a woman in Lansing Michigan. Also her heart valves have been recovered and have been sent to Texas to be implanted in the future. Her bone and soft tissue have also been prepared for use in musculoskeletal surgeries. Her skin has been used by LifeCell to assist in abdominal and plastic surgeries. It has been amazingly comforting to hear that her wonderful healthy tissues are being used by so many.

Emily’s dad placed a blog yesterday about the scholarship. What he didn’t mention is that the endowment is up to about $55,000 already. Thanks to all who contributed. John has made a commitment to keep enlarging this endowment every year. Since Emily died on his birthday, he plans to commemorate Emily with a fundraiser on May 15th every year.

I am not good at fund raising but I have always shared Emily’s spirit of community service. I have been increasing my involvement in some of the community activities related to Emily, in addition to my usual ones.
• I set up an information table to increase organ donor awareness at the Volunteer Fair at my college. I have become a Lion Eye Donor Ambassador and will speak at the Lions Eye Bank of New Jersey Open House in December.
• I have written letters to the NJ Board of Medicine to change the definition of brain death and have worked with the Sharing Network to improve the donor process.
• I have also been working with the Foundation for Peace (www.foundationforpeace.org ) that Emily went through to go to the Dominican Republic. They have done some amazing work in setting up water purification programs. One way they raise funds is by selling purses made by the Dominican women- I will be selling those at my college tomorrow during a Hispanic week program.
• I am also trying to develop a continuing education program that would bring groups of nurses regularly to the DR to run clinics to monitor chronic diseases through the International Nursing Honor Society.
• In order to get nurses interested in this type of service, I have submitted an abstract to present information about service learning and social justice at the NJ State Nursing Convention in the Spring.

So Emily continues to inspire me to help others. It has been 5 months and John, Katie and I still find ourselves talking about how impossible it all seems. I guess that we will always feel that way. The Fall seems to have all kinds of reminders of Emily- costumes, pumpkins, apple cider, football games and even the turning leaves remind me of how much fun Emily was.

Thanks to all of you for your continued messages and calls. We appreciate them. We will remember your support as we place our daisies tomorrow.