Long Grief

At last, here so fast

Having been slow to come

Calling to me, “Play.”

Pressing, marking

Black on my soul.

A robe and worn shoe

And his last half-read book

Lie upon my floor.

Scattered pieces

Frozen in peace.

Each turn upon turn

White queen to her knight dead

Along the checkered

Slow rotting board

Looming, askew.

Finish line stretches

Into abyss of pain.

It goes and it goes.

A bitter end

That time will find.

Susan Whitman-Helfgot
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Boston Med producer Terry Wrong and crew members at LA launch of The Match

Boston Med producer Terry Wrong and crew members Carl and Craig at LA launch of The Match: Complete Strangers with Tenaya Wallace of Donate Life Hollywood. Susan Whitman Helfgot was on hand signing copies of her new book which chronicles her husband's gift of a face in a historic transplant captured by ABC's Wrong last year while filming in Boston. The successful fundraiser will cover the costs of 8 documentary projects to be entered in next year's Donate Life Hollywood Film Festival.

Susan Whitman-Helfgot
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I'll Bring A Side Dish...

The Thanksgiving turkey sits in another oven, our family somewhat relieved having migrated to the smells and laughter of a different home. Better to sit and watch another husband still living carve the white and dark rather than to have our table’s head occupied by a replacement.

I pondered whether to bring along the silver gravy ladle that had belonged to my great-grandmother. At first thought it seemed having the dented thing with me might sooth the continuing sensation that everything has been destroyed. I tell myself that I finally decided to leave it in the drawer so it would not be lost in the holiday frenzy. In truth, it is because I am too raw to share, too angry to have warm memories occupy another woman’s kitchen.

The four children and I will go to my husband's grave tomorrow. We will pull the soft veil from the stone and stand together. I pray the dank earth will take pity upon me, releasing my grief. I am desperately waiting.

Susan Whitman-Helfgot
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UNOS Wall of Names Sun and Tears

On November 12, 2010 I visited UNOS - the national office of the United Network for Organ Sharing in Richmond. After signing copies of "The Match", its executive director Walter Graham gave me a tour of the award winning building. I watched spellbound as organ placement specialists juggled their 3 to 10 cases a day - a kidney running late from the west coast, a heart just clamped with 5 hours to make it by jet to a major medical center. Rows of clocks with various time zones from Maine to Hawaii line the walls of the nerve center.

We left the building into the warm autumn sun that reminded me why I love the South. I touched the stone etched with my husband's name - Joseph at the Wall of Names in the Memorial Garden. A small line of water ran down from the brick, left from the morning sprinklers. It seemed to be a tear.

Warmly,

Susan Whitman-Helfgot
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Winning Review by Kim Bagato: The Match By Susan Whitman Helfgot and William Novak

The Match is a unique account of two lives intertwined as a result of separate tragic events. The text is laced with Susan Whitman-Helfgot’s raw and honest thoughts about her husband’s life and death. She and William Novak give readers a behind the curtain look at the lives of face transplant donor Joseph Helfgot and Jim Maki who was the recipient of Helfgot’s generosity.

In this age of lawsuits and malpractice, the credibility, enthusiasm and warmth of the surgical team are noteworthy. I’ve heard it said that we don’t realize how strong we are until we’re up against what seem to be insurmountable odds. Only then do we find the strength necessary to press on. Often that strength is gained in the company of loved ones which was the case with the Helfgot and Maki family and friends.

Joseph’s family endured tentative moments teetering on the precipice of life and death. The Maki family endured pain of a different kind when Jim sustained a life-altering fall. Horror turned to hope when Joseph’s family agreed to donate the face of their beloved husband and father for an historic transplant. Susan Whitman-Helfgot and Jim Maki are living proof that calamity can bond people for good. May the record books bear evidence of thousands of transplant recipients living better lives through the unselfish gift of organ donation.

To learn more about organ donation: Donate Life America – www.donatelife.net United Network for Organ Sharing – www.unos.org U.S. Government – www.organdonor.gov

Review by Kim Bagato

You can finally say: “I went to Harvard!”

Send in a review of The Match: Complete Strangers, A Miracle Transplant, Two Lives Transformed and an excerpt from your review will be on display at Harvard Medical School’s Joseph Martin Center this November 10.

Your name, city of origin and picture, if you so choose, will be on predominant display for guests to read as they celebrate the official Boston book launch at Harvard during our gala fundraiser celebrating Team Heart Rwanda. Susan will also send you a personally autographed copy of “The Match” if you are one of the first 10 reviewers to respond.

All reviews must be limited to 350 words and received no later than Monday, November 8 at 12 noon, EST. Have some fun. Always wanted to write a review that would put the New York Times Book Review Section to shame? Now is your chance!

Susan Whitman-Helfgot
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Susan Whitman Helfgot with William Novak

"I started the book expecting to turn away. Three hours later, I set it down, in awe. ...The range of this book is astonishing... Because the focus shifts so quickly, the book reads like a thriller. And it is. But more, it’s a powerful account of people in crisis, when there’s no time to think and all you really have to go on is your character."

Jesse Kornbluth, HeadButler.com, October 20, 2010

Full Review below.

http://www.headbutler.com/books/non-fiction/match-complete-strangers-miracle-face-transplant-two-lives-transformed

We would like to thank Jesse for sharing your thoughts on The Match!

Susan Whitman-Helfgot
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Simon & Schuster: A Conversation with Susan Whitman Helfgot Part 3

Q. How did you feel when viewing the “Boston Med” documentary for the first time?

A. I was sitting next to Jim Maki and Bo Pomahac and other friends from the Brigham and we watched it together. They were finally able to meet Joseph, in a way. They never knew him in life. Film is a powerful medium. Terence Wrong, the show’s producer, and his crew, captured the final images of my husband three weeks before his death. Many new organ donors have come forward because of the show. I am deeply grateful.

Q. You didn’t meet Dr. Pomahac until after your husband’s death, and yet you discovered that their backgrounds are similar. Can you elaborate?

A. Bo Pomahac came to Boston from the Czech Republic two days after graduating from medical school. He had very little money and no job. Through hard work and talent, he made his way through Boston’s closed medical community to the point where he led a team of three dozen medical professionals through one of the most difficult surgeries ever performed.

My husband grew up dirt power on the Lower East Side of New York, and after a successful career as a university professor, he managed to fight his way into Hollywood, where he built a leading movie research company that now has offices on two continents.

Q. The decision to donate Joseph’s face was one you made with all of his children. How do they feel about the choice today?

A. We are all proud that our family was able to help Jim Maki, but the resulting publicity has been difficult for them.

Q&A with Simon & Schuster

Danielle Lynn, Senior Publicist

Susan Whitman-Helfgot
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Simon and Schuster: A Conversation with Susan Whitman Helfgot Part 2

Q. Your mother-in-law, Rachel, endured tremendous hardships, and you describe her as one of the toughest women you’ve ever known. How did her tenacity influence Joseph while he was in and out of hospitals?

A. Joseph’s parents were survivors of Auschwitz, living under the most extreme conditions a human being can endure. Every day they made a conscious choice to stay alive and, somehow, they were able to. Joseph’s mother taught her son -- and taught me, as well -- everything there is to know about hope in the face of terrible odds. Joseph was very brave, and one definition of bravery is finding hope in action.

Q. What would you say to a healthy young person who’s getting a driver’s license and deciding whether or not to be an organ donor?

A. There’s a popular bumper sticker: “Don’t take your organs to heaven. Heaven knows we need them here.” Very few of us ever have an opportunity to save a life, but knowing that your death could save the life of another person is a powerful idea. And knowing that the death of a loved one has brought life to somebody else has provided great solace to many grieving families.

Q&A with Simon & Schuster

Danielle Lynn, Senior Publicist

Susan Whitman-Helfgot
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Click on the tour dates tab from The Match Story fan page, to find your local book signing and updated information. http://bit.ly/bv3Itq

Simon & Schuster: A Conversation with Susan Whitman Helfgot Part 1

Q. What was your motivation in writing this book?

A. When The Boston Globe reported that my husband had been the donor for Jim Maki’s face transplant, I was approached about the rights to my story. I remember thinking that this isn’t my story. It belongs to my late husband, to Jim Maki, and to Bo Pomahac, the transplant surgeon. My attorney suggested that I keep a diary. Then I got to know Jim and Bo, and several other people who were intimately connected to the transplant, and my diary morphed into a book with the help of William Novak.

Q. How did Joseph’s medical treatments convince him—and you—of the importance of organ donation?

A. My husband, Joseph, waited for years for a new heart, but only about a third of those in that situation ever receive one. The rest die waiting. Right now, more than 100,000 people in this country alone are waiting for some type of solid organ transplant, but only about a quarter of them will get new organs this year. Potential recipients are on death row, hoping for the phone to ring. Without more donors, they will continue to die, waiting for the call.

Q&A with Simon & Schuster

Danielle Lynn, Senior Publicist

Susan Whitman-Helfgot
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Weekly Allowance and a Bailout

My son, Jacob, came to me on Wednesday looking for his weekly allowance. "Mom, I need my stimulus package," he said. "Will this trickle down?" I asked him. "Mommmm...." I continued, "stimulus means something designed to accelerate the economy. As in jobs. As in, will you actually walk the dog when you are supposed to every night?" "Sure, mom." I came in last night after walking the dog for the third night in a row. "Hi mom," said Jacob. "I need a bailout."

Visit us at: The Match

The Match: Complete Strangers....

Susan Whitman-Helfgot
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Florida Clouds

We called them “Florida Clouds” when I was a girl in Fort Lauderdale in 1968, huge billowing white balls of humidity spun up into tall skyscrapers that would march east from the Everglades in a late afternoon, exhausting themselves in heavy sheets of liquid pelting my bedroom windows. I was among them again today as my plane climbed into the sky leaving south Florida through the ghostlike wonders, childhood memories close as I flew through narrow canyons carved between mountains of white.

My father came home early one day in my junior year of high school to tell us he was moving the family to Boston. I left behind my sweet, doting boyfriend and my rat pack of girlfriends uniformly attired in extra-large BVD men’s tees with only bathing suits underneath, never again to taste the world’s best French fries from the locally owned Apothecary Shop or to steal puffs from lit cigarettes gladly offered by the older boys at the beach on Saturday afternoons.

I have returned here often, but rarely voluntarily. As a child, the beach stretched long and clean and safe, overrun one week a year with college kids who broke up the monotonous ebb and flow of the sleepy shoreline town just up a way from Miami on State Road 7. That Ft. Lauderdale died years ago, and now discontent, lost dreams and hopelessness oozes up from gridlocked burning macadam.

A decade later, I returned with my husband over and over again to care for my mother-in-law who suffered from Alzheimer’s until I finally came to loathe the place, the very place that had once loved me and raised me and then had washed away with the tide.

This week I returned again to help bury my cousin’s son, just shy of age 20, so young still, so innocent, who drowned in this place in a dark canal in the dead of night. I watched the strip of beach fall away from 17,000 feet and wondered what thing might next bring me back.

Susan Whitman-Helfgot
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Let your parents know you love them

I'm sitting at Logan Airport in Boston, grounded, waiting for thunderstorms to pass. Today my son, Jacob, left for his first day as a sophomore in high school as I was jumping into a taxi. I am on my way to Palm Beach to attend a funeral. My cousin's son died in a accident, drowning when his car skidded into a canal late at night. He was much too young to die. My cousin and his wife are heartbroken.

Every day, we live on borrowed time taken from the fabric of a universe so enormous and complex that we can only begin to wonder at what power could have possibly created such a miracle.

If you have parents living nearby or with you, stop what you are doing and go hug them right away, or call them if they are far from you. No one should ever have to lose a child. Let your parents know that you love them. Time is short.

Susan Whitman-Helfgot
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Chapter 1 of The Match- The First 1000 Words http://bit.ly/9KLmrW

The Match: A Brief Description

Joseph Helfgot, the son of Holocaust survivors, worked his way from a Lower East Side tenement to create a successful Hollywood research company. But his heart was failing. After months of waiting for a heart transplant, he died during the operation.

Hours after his death, his wife Susan was asked a shocking question: would she donate her husband's face to a total stranger?

The stranger was James Maki, the adopted son of parents who spent part of World War II in an internment camp for Japanese Americans. Rebelling against his stern father, a professor, by enlisting to serve in Vietnam, he returned home a broken man, addicted to drugs. One night he fell facedown onto the electrified third rail of a Boston subway track.

A young Czech surgeon who was determined to make a better life on the other side of the Iron Curtain was on call when the ambulance brought Maki to the hospital. Although Dr. Bohdan Pomahac gave him little chance of survival, Maki battled back. He was sober and grateful for a second chance, but he became a recluse, a man without a face. His only hope was a controversial face transplant, and Dr. Pomahac made it happen.

In The Match, Susan Whitman Helfgot captures decades of drama and history, taking us from Warsaw to Japan, from New York to Hollywood. Through wars and immigration, poverty and persecution, from a medieval cadaver dissection to a stunning seventeen-hour face transplant, she weaves together the story of people forever intertwined—a triumphant legacy of hope.

Susan Whitman Helfgot

Author, The Match

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Disabled American Veterans - It takes more than wishes to make a change

I was in New York yesterday, dropping off my son at college and meeting with a few people about The Match. It was unbelievably hot as I walked down 5th Avenue in the brilliant sun, and I turned onto a side street in the high 20s, zigzagging my way across town, trying to find shade.

A wrought iron fence came up to meet me, filled with hundreds of yellow ribbons, each carefully tied and tagged with the name of a soldier in Iraq or Afghanistan. Brown, Fischer, Garcia and Georgeopolis, they were all there. Some had been tagged with a note. One read, "Remember when we were young and love was all we knew". Some of the soldiers had died and pictures framed in black were stapled to their ribbons.

Thousands of soldiers have returned home, and many more will follow. Almost all are struggling to survive new battles; some suffer the loss of a hand, or leg or a portion of a face. Others struggle to survive battles invisible to the naked eye, a nightmare terror that comes again and again, or sleepless nights wondering how they will ever find a job to feed their family. It saddens me that we have not yet found peace on our fragile planet. Even more sad is the knowledge that fixing what is wrong seems almost impossible and will take much more than just wishing it could be another way.

If you haven't yet found a way to become engaged, please find a small project or make a modest donation on behalf of of the servicewomen and men who have suffered on our behalf. For more information please visit Disabled American Veterans http://www.dav.org/

Susan Whitman Helfgot

Author, The Match

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Jumping with Abandon

My boys and I just returned from Purity Spring Resort, a tiny bit of heaven in the White Mountains of New Hampshire. We found this spot twenty years ago and we return every year, a modern day pilgrimage. No matter how difficult or complicated, we always return. Always. A lake so clear, it is called Purity. We paddle canoes and watch beavers slide under kayaks for all too brief a time, hug and kiss friends we see only once a year while in this healing place, and then scatter, with the hope we will all make it through another year to do it all again. This year, two good men will never return. We celebrate them with joy for this perfect place.

Here is my friend Jane, a child at heart, jumping with abandon. If you don't have a lake, find one. Make it your own.

Susan Whitman-Helfgot

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The Match – AOPO Excerpts Part 4

Excerpt from prepared remarks by Susan Whitman Helfgot at the 2010 National Association of Organ Procurement Organizations recently held in Baltimore, Maryland.

... From a purely medical perspective, we know that the gift of facial tissue upon transplant ceases to be part of the donor and becomes the servant of a new master, directed by the brain which orchestrates its movements, imbuing it with new expressions, a new joie de vivre. Virtually no trace of the donor is left. But to a grieving widow, or to a mother or father, it is almost impossible to explain. So, why then, do donor families step forward and say yes? ....

AOPO's Mission

AOPO represents and serves Organ Procurement Organizations through advocacy, support, and development of activities that will maximize the availability of organs and tissues and enhance the quality, effectiveness, and integrity of the donation process.

As of July 30, 2010, 107,913 people are on the waiting list to receive the Gift of Life.

By: Susan Whitman Helfgot, Author of The Match available in bookstores & online October 12

Susan Whitman-Helfgot
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Life is a ticket to the greatest show on earth.
Martin H. Fischer

Hospitals and Having the Conversation about Organ Donation

A young mother wrote me a note. She lost her one month old baby and is sad because no one asked her if her little son could be an organ donor.

This was my reply:

"I know very well how much healing comes with the knowledge that a part of your loved one can continue helping another life to go on. I have never lost a child so it is impossible for me to know the depth of your grief, but I am deeply saddened for you and wish you strength during what is still a very difficult time in your life.

A few comments might help you, though. First, doctors and nurses are not directly involved in conversations about organ donation. This is left to family counselors who are employees of organ banks around the country. Sometimes, due to distance, other ongoing cases in other hospitals and simply a lack of staff, these conversations just never happen as there is no one available to speak to a family.

Sometimes, hospitals do not have the resources to help with organ recovery. Not every hospital participates in organ recovery; this is particularly the case with small hospitals who do not have appropriate staff or resources.

It is also possible that your child's medical condition made it improbable or impossible for him to be a viable organ donor and, rather than start a discussion and "get your hopes up", it was determined not to broach the subject with you and he was disqualified at the outset.

But your letter raises a very important point. So little is known by the general public about the process of organ donation. Not only is it important for us to sign up as organ donors, it is imperative that we communicate this to our primary care physicians and to our families that we have done so. Then, they may advocate strongly for us if the situation ever arises. Their first call should be to the local organ bank, even before calling the rest of the family. Although the hospital should help facilitate this, sometimes they are unable to help. There is no advocate like a family advocate."

Susan Whitman-Helfgot
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Donate Life

“Life is full of beauty. Notice it. Notice the bumble bee, the small child, and the smiling faces. Smell the rain, and feel the wind. Live your life to the fullest potential, and fight for your dreams.” Ashley Smith

The Match author Susan Whitman Helfgot – AOPO Excerpts Part 3

Excerpt from prepared remarks by Susan Whitman Helfgot at the 2010 National Association of Organ Procurement Organizations recently held in Baltimore, Maryland.

... When our ancestors were on the hunt, a quick glance between two humans often spelled the difference between survival and starvation. Our face is the most intimate and precious part of our body; it is the purveyor of the very air we breathe and the nutrients we ingest to survive. And, every face tells a running story to others every moment of every day beyond anything that can ever be achieved with mere words. It follows, then, that donating a loved one’s face is different and will always remain so.

AOPO's Mission

AOPO represents and serves Organ Procurement Organizations through advocacy, support, and development of activities that will maximize the availability of organs and tissues and enhance the quality, effectiveness, and integrity of the donation process.

As of July 30, 2010, 107,913 people are on the waiting list to receive the Gift of Life.

By: Susan Whitman Helfgot, Author of The Match available in bookstores & online October 12

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Modern Miracles & Making Fast Friends

I traveled back from Los Angeles last night with my boys. A flight attendant named Jennie recognized me from Boston Med. We talked and became fast friends. Face transplants are a wonder of modern medicine. My experience with Jennie is a modern miracle of another kind. From a cable channel in San Francisco, she watched a show. A week later, at 35,000 feet and 1500 miles away, somewhere over the Mississippi River, she met me on a plane. We are now fast friends. What a world we live in. Rejoice every day.

Susan Whitman Helfgot

It could be the most important talk of your life for a stranger on a waiting list. http://bit.ly/bwX56y

The Match author Susan Whitman Helfgot – AOPO Excerpts Part 2

Excerpt from prepared remarks by Susan Whitman Helfgot at the 2010 National Association of Organ Procurement Organizations recently held in Baltimore, Maryland.

... My husband, Joseph was colorful and brilliant, possessed of a keen wit and was ruthlessly loyal to his friends and his family. He had fought so hard to live, for so long, that his death was almost a surprise to our family and to his caregivers. Being here with you today reminds me of that enormous loss. But look at what been gained. When Drs. Dubernard and Devauchelle performed the first face transplant in Amiens, France five years ago, it electrified the world. And, as we know, this achievement, although a medical success, was greeted with great skepticism and even, ridicule. We have traveled far from that day with several face transplants performed worldwide.

AOPO's Mission

AOPO represents and serves Organ Procurement Organizations through advocacy, support, and development of activities that will maximize the availability of organs and tissues and enhance the quality, effectiveness, and integrity of the donation process.

As of July 30, 2010, 107,913 people are on the waiting list to receive the Gift of Life.

By: Susan Whitman Helfgot, Author of The Match available in bookstores & online October 12

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Bowled over by Helfgot Boys, Ben and Jacob.

Jim Maki and I sat on a stone wall in the back of Brigham and Women's Hospital yesterday. A newswoman was interviewing us about ABC's upcoming Boston Med show this Thursday night. She asked how we felt about the show. Bittersweet came to my mind as one of its main characters isn't here to enjoy all the limelight -- and anyone who knew Joseph knew how much he loved the limelight! But happy, too. The show is great, Jim is doing great, and my family vacation looms in 3 days! And my son actually put his folded clothes in his drawer... I was "bowled over".

Thank you all

I've received so many notes today from those of you who saw last night's final episode of Boston Med. Thanks for your love and support. A young woman wrote to me with the following. It captures everything.

I have a mission to find you to tell you what I think. Thank you for what you did, I'm still crying. You and your husband are the most unselfish persons and such words cannot describe what I feel about what you did to help out another human.

A warm tear roll down my face

a warm face that can be touched

a face that can be felt

a life that will live on

Such a soul that will live on.

To you, your family, thank you, thank you for making a gift of giving.

I'm am sorry for your loss. I will make give the gift of life, donating my blood to Kaiser in your name. That is something that I can do.

I thank you, bless you and your family. You know that he will live on helping another family. The ultimate gift of love.

Thank you, thank you....

Soraya Nakamura

Thank you Soraya!

Sue

"The Match moves, shakes and clings" as quoted by Hsiu-Lan Chang.

I begged Susan Whitman Helfgot for the advance copy of The Match and promised to return it to her in 2 days. The reverence I developed for the story made it hard to let the book go. The narrative is fast-paced and packed with facts, tid-bits and anecdotes, but every few chapters or so, I needed to stop reading and cradle the book with respect, mull the extraordinary progression of events and contemplate the courage of the characters with awe and affection. It could have been tempting but Susan never resorts to sentimentality. Her armor is pragmatism, humor, strength and an absolute conviction in what her husband and life partner believed in and wanted. What Joseph, Susan and their family went through is beyond my imagination. The gift of Joseph's face gives James Maki the hope of a normal life. In turn, through The Match, Susan offers a powerful new life to Joseph. You won't be able to "shake off" the clinging effect of The Match. It proposes to us that our FINAL moment can also become our most brilliant.

By: Hsiu-Lan Chang

Anything you can do to help suggest and share The Match with friends and family to help would be appreciated! Thank you! Susan

We are miracles, made from stardust - Thoughts on Life, Perseid Meteor Shower & Boston Med Finale

Those of you who know me well, know that I am a sucker for things that twinkle in the sky. I am still awed, even after years of studying science, when I pause to consider that my bones, spun into being by chemically rich RNA, are made from calcium and other elements created during supernova explosions that occurred many hundreds of millions of years ago. Somehow, these chemicals magically found their way here, to our tiny planet and into our complex biological bodies carrying forth the torch of creation. We are miracles -- made from stardust.

It is fitting that, as the final episode of Boston Med airs tonight, the Perseid Meteor Shower of 2010 will perform overhead. As we pass through Swift-Tuttle's shattered comet tail, stardust rich meteors will rain down upon us. Tonight, as a historic face transplant unfolds on television, the sky will deliver its bounty outside, unaware of our small medical triumph. I encourage you to watch both of these amazing shows.

Final Episode of Boston Med. Tonight on ABC. 10 p.m. EST.

Perseid Meteor Shower. Tonight on Planet Earth. Northern Hemisphere. Any darkened sky channel near you.

"May you live in interesting times."

Chinese Proverb.

Susan Whitman Helfgot

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Finally the website is live and looks wonderful! http://ow.ly/2oeaO

AOPO Excerpts Part 1

Excerpt from prepared remarks by Susan Whitman Helfgot at the 2010 National Association of Organ Procurement Organizations recently held in Baltimore, Maryland.

... finally removing your wedding ring from your finger after a period of time signifies acceptance of a loss. So, too, is saying, “yes” when asked to make the gift of a loved one’s organs. It is powerfully difficult, requiring an immediate acceptance of the fact someone we love dearly has just died, our yes signifying the staggering truth, “Yes, I realize he is gone and is never coming back." But the donation of a face is a very different kind of organ donation, tapping into a different kind of acceptance, probing the very deepest emotional spaces we inhabit as human beings.

AOPO's Mission

AOPO represents and serves Organ Procurement Organizations through advocacy, support, and development of activities that will maximize the availability of organs and tissues and enhance the quality, effectiveness, and integrity of the donation process.

As of July 30, 2010, 107,913 people are on the waiting list to receive the Gift of Life.

By: Susan Whitman Helfgot, Author of The Match available in bookstores & online October 12

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"I loved the way the book moved around, loved learning about your beloved husband and all the other characters." Lee Woodruff The Match

Susan Whitman Helfgot asks readers and fans to write to the United Nations

Reading an article in Time Magazine about a young woman who was disfigured in the mid-east. I feel like the little boy in Holland who plugged a dyke for which there was no repair. http://www.time.com/time/covers/0,16641,20100809,00.html

My call to action. Write to the United Nations: http://www.un.org/womenwatch/daw/vaw/index.htm

Sadly yours,

Susan Whitman Helfgot
Author, The Match
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Don't ever run in heeled sandals

I ran down Ave. Louis Pasteur yesterday in ridiculous humidity, late to a lunch with my advisor from Simmons College. As I sped across the street in my once pressed, now shriveled, white linen suit slipping in barely-there sandals, I realized why they invented New Balance and Puma. Moral: don't ever run in heeled sandals. Especially in an old city like Boston with cobblestone sidewalks. What on earth was I thinking? I sprinted past Harvard Medical School trying to think of a creative way to ask for another extension. She's heard it before, the "things don't seem to be slowing down anytime soon" speech. As I burst through the door out of breath, she gave me a "I know, you're flat out and you'll be needing another extension" look. Which brings me to faces. Sometimes you just don't need words. But you always need a face. I'm glad Jim Maki has been given a chance to live life as a man with a face.

Susan Whitman Helfgot

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Caregivers of Team Heart Rwanda and The Match

I sat in an office building this week in Boston's South End meeting with members of Brigham and Women's Hospital. We had gathered to discuss plans for an upcoming fall event honoring one of my favorite groups, Team Heart Rwanda. Each year, Boston cardiac surgeons, nurses and technicians travel to tiny Rwanda and perform life saving surgery for the nation's young people. They do this on their own dime and time. Sadly, in a county of 10 million, there is not one trained open-heart cardiac surgeon. They were either killed or fled during the genocide. As the infrastructure to support their work is slowly rebuilt, children have been dying without simple penicillin to treat strep infection. Many who survive childhood with untreated strep are left with rheumatic heart disease and will soon die without open-heart surgery.

Team Heart includes many wonderful caregivers who kept my husband alive for a long time, and The Match will toast them at a gala on November 10th at Harvard Medical School presenting a share of proceeds from book sales. But, as our discussion turned to corporate sponsors for the party, I was far away, looking out the window at the Prudential Center across the street. It seemed impossible to believe that just a few years ago, Joseph and I bought our first house right around the corner; a bombed out brownstone in what was then a rough and tumble not even ready to be gentrified kind of frontier-land. My old neighborhood was almost unrecognizable to me now. Boston Duck Boats filled up with chattering tourists in front of a Cheesecake Factory. Tall buildings loomed over what was once cracked sidewalk.

So much has been created and much also lost in the intervening years since those early days when colored sheets tacked up on windows served as early my first curtains. While Rwanda was losing a generation, Joseph and I were busy creating two members of a new one. Team Heart Rwanda is a reminder that nothing is ever completely lost.

Visit Team Heart Rawanda. http://www.teamheart.org/tag/susan-whitman-helfgot/)

Susan Whitman Helfgot
www.thematchstory.com
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Dr. Pomahac from Brigham and Women's Hospital

The Match Story Plastic Surgeon in the video below, Dr. Pomahac shows the areas of the mid-face that were transplanted in the 17-hour surgery by a team of seven plastic surgeons and one ear, nose and throat (ENT) surgeon, nurses, anesthesiologists and residents.

Governor’s Daily Update

Innovation, Education, Infrastructure, Supporting Small Business & Regional Economies

Thursday, July 29, 2010

Today: Thursday, July 29, 2010 – Continuing Our Commitment to Excellence in Higher Education

Today, Governor Patrick will sign “An Act Establishing an Organ and Tissue Donor Registration Fund” at a State House ceremony. By helping to increase awareness about the importance of organ and tissue donations and by facilitating donor registration, this law will support the expansion of organ and tissue donation efforts in Massachusetts. The legislation establishes a fund that will accept public and private gifts, grants and donations that will support donor registration and revitalizes the Department of Public Health's Advisory Council on Organ and Tissue Transplants and Donations. “This bill is a major step forward in addressing the dire need for tissue and organ donations in Massachusetts,” said Governor Patrick. “Organ and tissue donations save lives, and I am proud that Massachusetts will be expanding its efforts to educate the public about the importance of this issue.” Full text of the bill can be found here.

Understanding Donation

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What you need to know

Transplantation is one of the most remarkable success stories in the history of medicine. But despite continuing advances in medicine and technology, the need for organs and tissue is vastly greater than the number available for transplantation.

Transplantation gives hope to thousands of people with organ failure and provides many others with active and renewed lives. To learn more, choose an option below:

Learn the facts Organ donation Tissue donation Cornea donation Living donation

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The Match: Complete Strangers, a Miracle Face Transplant, Two Lives Transformed http://bit.ly/cjtyXS