Connor Meigs with his mother, Linda, and sister, Kit, during the reception after his brother’s wedding on July 10, 2004. This was one of the last photos taken of Connor with his immediate family.

Connor checked off a box when he renewed his Nebraska driver’s license when he was 18 years old, saying he wanted to be an organ donor. Then, in December, a year and a half later, he died in a car accident. And on Christmas Day, four recipients received the gift of life from a KU student they would never meet.

“He gave probably the greatest Christmas present he could have,” said Doug Meigs, Connor’s twin brother. “I think it’s a gift to mankind. He’s given a part of himself so more people can live more enriched lives, and they, in turn, can help other people.”

Connor was one of more than 620,000 registered donors in Kansas and Nebraska. In Kansas, residents have three ways to sign up with the donor registry, said Laura Schons, hospital and family services coordinator for the Midwest Transplant Network. People can become a donor by checking off that option when they receive or renew their driver’s licenses; they can state their intentions in a living will; or they can sign up directly with the Midwest Transplant Network. In Nebraska, sign-up is just as easy.

The demand for organs is high and the supply is never enough, health officials say. In addition, the recipient must have a perfect match with the organ so the wait is usually long.

It’s especially important for young people to think about organ donations, Schons said. They have healthier hearts and lungs, which are the most difficult organs to transplant, she said.

Families say goodbye, save lives

For Connor Meigs’ family, being part of the organ donation process was difficult, but gratifying. But Linda Meigs knows the decision her son made to donate his organs was right.

“At 19, you wish he could have those organs. You wish he could undo it,” she said. “But long term, it’s the gift that keeps giving.”

Linda said leaving her son in the hospital was one of the hardest moments of his death.

“Organ donation is a very difficult thing for a family to do because they keep the body on life support to make him look alive, and you walk away from your loved one — apparently alive,” she said.

The accident happened Dec. 20 when Connor and Doug were driving to their grandmother’s house in Omaha, Neb. Their car hit a patch of black ice and slid into a pick-up truck. The brothers both went into comas.

Doug woke up the next day, but Connor did not. He had suffered brain damage. He died at 7:50 a.m. on Christmas Eve.

But his driver’s license, as of May, 2003, showed he wanted to be a donor.

The Nebraska Organ Recovery System, which took care of Connor’s body, kept him on a ventilator to keep his lungs breathing and his heart pumping.

Nebraska state law prohibits interference — including family objections — from the deceased person fulfilling his or her registered obligation, said Cynthia Wofford, Clinical Nurse Coordinator at the Nebraska Organ Recovery System.

The Midwest Transplant Network, however, under special circumstances, such as unexpected deaths, gives family members the option to override the donation, Schons said. She said the network would respect the family’s wishes in a situation that involved a donor dying unexpectedly before he got the chance to remove his name from the registry.

Although it’s rare, Schons said she would tell the family member to get a wider family consent if she thought that person was imposing personal beliefs to override the donor’s wishes.

It’s this power of final consent that makes families the real heroes, not the surgeons or social workers, Schons said.

“It’s these families who give the gift of life.”

Organ registry still young

More than 87,000 people are waiting for an organ in the United States and most of them will die, Schons said.

The need for organs is more urgent now than it was before the Kansas state registry came into existence in January 2003. The waiting list is growing rapidly because technology allows people to live longer and most dialysis patients, who wouldn’t have been considered for transplants several years ago, are now being considered, she said.

More than 170,000 donors are registered in the state of Kansas, which is only 6.3 percent of the state’s 2.6 million people. And only 32,934 registered donors are between the ages of 18 and 24 years old, according to the Midwest Transplant Network.

In Douglas County, 7,651 people of the total population of 99,962 are registered. Of 18-to 24-year-olds, 1,982 are registered.

Schons said she didn’t like to favor one age group over another, but younger donors were desperately needed.

“Young people tend to have better organs,” she said. “No ifs, ands or buts that the younger we are, the healthier we are.”

The gift that kept giving

Andy Miller will forever be grateful to the family who, five years ago, allowed him to have a better life.

Miller got in a car accident when he was 16 years old. Doctors ran blood tests and discovered he had kidney reflux disease.

Some of the urine was pushed back into the kidneys rather than leaving completely through the urethra. That meant parts of the kidney broke off, Miller said.

After two years of medication, doctors placed Miller on dialysis. For the Louisburg resident, this was the worst part.

Dialysis can be an exhausting process for people with failing kidneys because it consumes a lot of time, said Julie Duncan, nurse and communication center supervisor at the Midwest Transplant Network.

Kidney dialysis re-creates the basic, but important, task of filtering out the urine and accompanying waste, such as excess vitamins. The blood is diverted from the body, run through a filtering machine and then back into the body.

Depending on their kidney function, patients have to undergo the process two to three times per week. Each process — from sitting in the waiting room to recovery — takes up to several hours.

“A lot of people can live a very long time on dialysis, but that’s not how they want to live,” Duncan said.

That’s why the majority of patients choose to get kidney transplants — so they can live more of a normal life, Duncan said. Miller was on dialysis for one year before his name was added to the transplant waiting list.

Twice he thought the wait had ended when doctors found a possible donor, only to be told the kidneys did not match up perfectly. The false alarms was disappointing at first, Miller said, but he knew the hospital was working hard to find him a new kidney.

“It was a sign of hope that I would get a transplant.”

Finally, after waiting nine months, he got a new kidney. The organ came from a 22-year-old man who died from a brain tumor.

“You wouldn’t believe how thankful I was,” he said. “I don’t know where I would be without it. Your body can only take so much dialysis.”

He is now 24 years old, but the 23 pills he takes every day — so his body won’t reject the transplanted kidney — help remind him of the life-saving gift he received five years ago.

Miller plans to return the favor one day. He’s been a registered organ donor since he got his license at 16 years old.

An inspiration to many

Linda Meigs, Connor’s mother, said she thought her son became a donor because he hated to waste.

“He was very environmentally conscious,” she said. “I think he would be pleased his functioning organs would be useful and would save other lives.

Connor’s twin brother, Doug, who turned 20 on Feb. 25, has been a registered donor since he was 16 years old. Connor decided to donate about three months after he turned 18.

“I think it’s a great thing. Just a little check of a box can change a life completely,” Doug said. “It’s not like you’re going to use your body after you die. You might as well give it to someone else.”

Some of Connor’s friends in Omaha and at the University are now considering to put their names on the donor registry.

Steve Rue actually placed his name on the Nebraska registry when he renewed his driver’s license two months after Connor’s death. The number of lives Connor saved with his organs inspired Rue, who has known Connor since their sophomore years in high school, to change his feelings about organ donations from when he was 16 years old.

“It’s pretty crazy to think seven people could be saved,” he said.

Neal Bierman isn’t registered because he said he was unaware of the process when he got his license at 16. But since Connor’s death, Bierman, who has known Connor his entire life, has made it his goal to register his name when he renews his license in August. He said Connor always asked his friends if they were donors.

“Connor was really big on it,” Bierman said.

Connor’s donations also gave Timon Veach, Pittsburgh, Pa., senior more reasons to become a donor.

“I thought it was pretty noble,” said Veach, who knew Connor from the KU hockey team. He said laziness has kept him from adding his name, but he planned on registering one day. “I think about Connor every day since he left,” he said.

The process continues

Two short weeks after Connor died, Linda Meigs sent her first letter to the Nebraska Organ Recovery System to send on to the four people who’d received his large intestine, liver and both kidneys.

“I was hoping to meet the people who had a part of Connor,” his mother said.

The Nebraska system and the Midwest Transplant Network don’t allow the families of the donor and recipients to meet until one year has passed. Then, the Midwest Transplant Network will release each party’s confidential information as long as all parties give consent, Schons said.

Many recipients, as well as donor families, may be apprehensive about communicating, said Chris Dunham, community liaison for the Nebraska Organ Recovery System.

Many recipients have told her it was hard for them to sit down and write a letter, thanking someone for saving their lives. Some of them have also told her they feared not meeting certain expectations of the donor’s family, she said.

Donor families don’t want to forget about their family member, but they may also want to move on with their lives.

Five months later Linda Meigs continues to wait for a response.

But she understands.

“We’re on different sides of the table,” Meigs said. “We’re grieving and they’re healing.”