I knew from a very young age I wanted to be a mother. So much so, that I would pray that my favorite doll would come alive. Of course, a thought like that now terrifies me.
I ended up having three kids. First, my husband Randy and I had a girl. We named her Kayla. My eccentric Mother, who is no longer with us, helped us decide on her middle name which is Storm.
Six years later, when we had our son, who we named Corbin (I had that name picked three years before he was even thought of). We felt like we had to pick a middle name for him that complimented his sisters. He is Corbin Hail.
A year later we found ourselves having to decide what to name the third child. It took us quite some
time to settle on a name. When I finally figured it out, I was so excited that I knew if Randy didn’t like my choice, I would be devastated. But he did. His name just made sense.
I knew, I think we both knew, this would be our last child. We both felt like three was the perfect number. The fact that this was going to be our last child made me realize we would be a family of 5. And that is how I realized the perfect name was right in front of my face. 5th member of our family, words that mean 5, Quint, His name would be Quentin! As for his middle name, It took me having to watch the weather a few nights in a row to find a name that would go with the “theme” we had going. Finally, the weatherman said it was going to be Hazy, and I yelled, “Quentin Haze!”. I looked at Randy and he said, “I like it!”.
Out of the three kids, Quentin was always the outgoing, willing to try anything, the always kept busy one. He was the child that had the most visits to the emergency room, the one with the seasonal allergies, and the one that needed glasses, like me. Quentin was the Momma’s Boy, the helper the giver, and the first one to say yes to going somewhere with his parents. In his teens, he liked skateboarding. As he got a little older, he like working, volunteering with me, cars, then motorcycles, and, of course, his girlfriend. He would teach himself how to fix his cars and motorcycle by watching videos, or by asking his dad for help. He felt proud when he figured out how to fix things on his own.
Quentin went on to have two little boys with his girlfriend, Jalia. Their sons Logan and Milo will unfortunately only know their dad from stories, pictures and videos.
Quentin was going to work on the morning of July 3rd, 2024, when someone did a U-turn in front of him while he was on his motorcycle. My worst fear was happening.
He spent 8 days in the ICU. Even though he was wearing his helmet, at some point after impact it must have flown off. The damage to his brain was severe and only getting worse as the days went by.
At the appropriate time, we decided to donate his organs. It was a way for him to still be here in some capacity. As great as that day was going to be for several other people getting the gift of life, it was the absolute worst day of our lives. But I knew that had we not donated his organs; we would not have gotten the final memories we now have. His honor walk, we were told by many hospital staff that it was the biggest showing of people they had ever seen. Four people’s lives were saved.
The quilts from other donor families, and the Versiti teams support were so greatly appreciated and we felt so honored.
We certainly do not regret making the decision to donate. We only wish that we weren’t put in this life altering situation that led to us having to consider it.
As a Surgical Technologist myself, I have seen the surgical side to organ donation so there are allot of known visuals and thoughts I had to battle in my head on my own because I certainly didn’t want to share them with my non medical family.
I have stood though other families letters being read and held back tears for people I didn’t even know. And in those moments thought to myself. ” I don’t know if I could ever make this decision for my child or husband.”
I never in a million years thought that I would in fact have to make that decision for my child, my baby.
I had to write that letter that would be read to the surgical team.
I specialize in cardiac surgery for many years. The Versiti team was beyond amazing the entire journey. They fullfilled a request of mine. I gave consent for them to take a photo of his heart. Someone was going to be receiving his heart, and I needed to see this organ that gave him life that made him the beautiful person that he was. This organ that is symbolic to me, connecting him to me via cardiac surgery.
Until my family either reads this story or hears it, they had no idea I had that photo. But also, there aren’t allot of non medical people that want to see organs outside of the body….. in my defense.
